


The Vicious Pet

by Auntarctica, Imre_nico (Auntarctica)



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-04-04 14:52:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 51,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14022636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Auntarctica/pseuds/Auntarctica, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Auntarctica/pseuds/Imre_nico
Summary: "A piece of treacherous art. A jackbooted, earthbound archangel dragging dust-tipped wings on the common ground of Groznyj Grad."





	1. Chapter 1

_Beyond the city and evening dust  
Dreams and thunder rattle and rust. ___

__(Steve Kilbey)_ _

__

__Sometimes Ivan Raikov longed for Siberia._ _

__He didn’t understand what everyone dreaded so much about the North. What could be wrong with long tracts of pristine white, and solitude? Within the walls of Groznyj Grad were many more walls, where men and machines went about the pursuit of glory and bureaucracy. To him, that was far more miserable._ _

__Each day he strode with purposeful leisure through the sanitized halls of the East Wing, resplendent in olive dress and tall black boots, blond hair swaying beneath his Major’s cap with its red star cockade. Even among scores of uniformed officers, Raikov was hardly inconspicuous._ _

__It amused him, how soldiers snapped into salute at the slightest hint of his unmistakable heel-strikes on the immaculate linoleum. His rounds were notoriously unpredictable; it was well known around Groznyj Grad that Major Ivan Raikov was free to come and go as he pleased. He kept to no one’s schedule but Colonel Volgin’s._ _

__Raikov harbored no illusions about where his true talents lay, and administration wasn’t one of those places. He’d been trained in close combat and counter-espionage tactics, of course, but none of that mattered. All else paled in the flawless face of his genetics. Breeding and bone structure had conspired to make him beautiful. Because of this, the Colonel had placed him on a pedestal, high enough to whisper into his perfect ear, and it was this proximity that made him the second most feared man in Groznyj Grad._ _

__It was no secret that the Major’s duties extended well beyond standard military procedure._ _

__But Colonel Volgin was a busy man, often gone from the Grad for days at a time. Raikov was left to his own devices more often than not, an arrangement that suited him rather well. Such was the case tonight, as Volgin was in absentia, doubtless absorbed in the afterglow of storming Granin’s research facility, dealing with the inevitable ramifications of an exceedingly hostile takeover._ _

__Sometime during the day it had begun to snow._ _

__Raikov didn’t know when, as he had been confined to nine hours inside a windowless hangar, overseeing the progress of the weapons engineers in Volgin’s stead. It was only after he had left for the day, crossing the skybridge to the East Wing, that he got his first glimpse of the outer perimeter through the reinforced glass. The tarmac and asphalt that spread for miles were being gently overcome by large, graceful flakes of frozen lace that drifted to earth like parachutes. It wasn’t the same as the everyday flurries of tiny white stars that swirled in the thin mountain air, vainly assaulting the ground, succeeding only in dusting the concrete with silvery frost._ _

__Ivan Raidenovich Raikov was a good Russian, and like most good Russians, he knew the intricacies of snow. This was the kind of snow that covered, that conquered, that stayed. It smothered inhospitable tarmac and behemoth outbuildings alike in a coat of blank beauty like ermine._ _

__Raikov was quiet and elated as he retired to his room. Certainly this evening was made for spending alone; at ease in his quarters, staring out at the frozen sky._ _

__Solitude had fallen over him, along with the twilight. The snowfall continued well past dusk and into night, showing no signs of relenting. He liked the constant motion, falling outside his window, teasing his eyes. He liked the vastness of the luminous grey sky, dappled with white; the blanketing feeling of contentment, as the world swallowed itself into wide obscurity._ _

__Raikov reclined on the bed, long legs crossed carelessly, listening to everything and nothing. His Major’s cap lay discarded on the blanket beside him, its black patent brim just brushed by the blunt, spilled strands of his pale hair. He was still in his uniform, but it didn’t bother him. Unlike most people, he had always found the rigid structure of formal dress oddly comfortable._ _

__The life signs of the fortress were faint and distant. Everything felt subdued somehow, sleepy and pleasant, like the low-key thrum of underground wires. They were always there, active and alive, but their presence was unobtrusive, muffled beneath the deep snow. Of course, the war machine never stopped turning. Raikov knew that. It would be unconscionably naïve to think otherwise. Still, it was a deeply dormant world outside._ _

__Perhaps Groznyj Grad did not sleep, but merely dozed on its feet._ _

__Raikov also knew that however quiet the world had become, Volgin was awake. Very likely Ocelot as well. Somewhere in the fortress, they were ‘debriefing’ the scientists of Granin’s research facility, who would now be pressed into service under GRU. The scientists were probably wishing they could turn their many prototypes squarely on themselves right about now. The learning curve of accepting Colonel Volgin’s authority could be steep indeed._ _

__Yesterday’s little coup had been the yield of a carefully planted harvest, a concerted effort among soldiers in the East Wing that Raikov had orchestrated with unmitigated brutality. It should not have been possible in the time it took, but he had made it a reality. He had presented the strategic diagrams without fanfare, striding into the war room and slapping them down on the table before the Colonel, ignoring Ocelot’s resulting scowl and narrowed eyes. With plans mapped out to take control of Graniny-Gorki, Volgin had been eager to act._ _

__Ocelot had frowned, wary as usual, until he had studied every inch of the blueprints and maps, satisfying himself that there was no margin for error._ _

__Despite Ocelot’s skepticism, Raikov had no doubts about the solidity of the plans. He bluntly requested inclusion in the mission._ _

__“I think not, Ivan,” Colonel Volgin had intoned, with a throaty laugh, stroking a finger along the curve of Raikov’s jaw. “No, you’ll stay right here where I know you’re safe.”_ _

__Ocelot had given him the finger-guns as he left, with a smirk and a lift of his eyebrow. “Don’t burn the place down."_ _

__They had returned hours afterward, storming through the doors of the weapons lab--Volgin’s little sideshow of Sakhorovian military monstrosities--with the squirming, cowering scientists in tow, Major Ocelot giving him an insolent wink. Raikov had been coolly congratulatory, but had not lingered to celebrate._ _

__Later that night, in the Colonel’s quarters, he had taken full advantage of his permission to speak freely. “There was no reason to exclude me from this. You know I’m capable.”_ _

__Volgin had smiled indulgently. “Don’t be angry with me, Ivan. I have my reasons for leaving you here.”_ _

__Raikov had protested. "I’m no less qualified than any of your other men.”_ _

__“No,” the Colonel had murmured, “But you’re far less expendable.” His hands had found Raikov’s shoulders, easing slowly down his arms. “Really Ivan,” the Colonel said, lips against his ear, “you know I couldn’t risk letting anything happen to you. No matter how good a soldier you may be.”_ _

__Raikov had feigned wounded outrage, briefly, before giving himself up to Volgin’s electro-sensual attentions, but in truth he wasn’t really surprised._ _

__It had been worth a shot, to see if he could liven things up on the job a touch, within the parameters of what he could risk. The assignment was not the worst he’d ever had, but it irked him, more often than not, with its petty ordinariness. Despite the incredible stakes of the game being played, life-threatening tension was at a premium in the East Wing of Groznyj Grad._ _

__Clearly, Ocelot had drawn the long straw._ _

__Raikov idly resigned himself to desk duty, as Volgin roughly unzipped his jodhpurs, caressing him firmly through the black vinyl that lay beneath. “Come, Vanya. I have to return to the debriefing soon. I always need you to be here, in charge of my plans. You know this. I trust,” he murmured, nuzzling Raikov’s hardening cock, "only you.”_ _

__It was true, reflected Raikov, surprised, as always, by the man’s obvious sincerity. Volgin had given him C-class clearance, something no one else at Groznyj Grad possessed, and no one should have possessed, let alone a pretty Major with a willing nature._ _

__Raikov sighed. It was a shame, in a way._ _

__But he was well aware of the primary objective, even with Volgin’s massive shoulders braced between his thighs, and pleasure radiating from each deliberate movement of his lightly charged lips and tongue. It was something that did not bear forgetting while he was screwing the Colonel--that he was also screwing him._ _

__As a child, Raikov had found himself in a strange world, where they taught fascinating games._ _

__He remembered the chain link fence of the charm school where he’d learned his treacherous manners. It seemed to stretch all the way to God, like a heavenly net of metal diamonds. You could hook your fingers in it, and let your weight be taken. And there you were, hanging from grace._ _

__If that became old, you could step back a little, and gaze steadily with unfocused eyes until the pattern of the links clicked into a new perspective, hovering right before your eyes. With a little practice, you could switch back and forth between the two._ _

__If you stared at it just right, you could make the fence dissolve altogether, and that was the best of all._ _

__Groznyj Grad had not appealed to him at first. Strangely enough, it wasn’t the cinderblock and metal aesthetic that failed to move him, but the barren mountains that surrounded it, trapping them all in the embrace of a wasteland. Held to the breast of a desolate mother._ _

__Raikov was partial to beauty. If he looked and there was none, he would stare until he found it._ _

__Even a concrete world could be remade in his own image._ _

__He liked these moments under glass. The tick of the clock, like a lover’s heartbeat. The relentless drift of evening snowfall outside._ _

__Siberia._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this fic some years ago, during the heyday of Snake Eater, before I sorta wandered off to write novels. It lived on LJ and FF (at least until some scandalized pearl-clutcher reported it for graphic sex), but in the interests of comprehensive personal history, I thought it ought to be here. I'll be putting up chapters as quickly as I can roll my eyes over them and make sure they're not too blighted by youthful excesses. I still love MGS, I gotta say. Cheers!


	2. Chapter 2

_Combustion, suggestions, roaring engines  
Jewels and lathes that build a world   
Titanic Howard Hughes, an aimless king   
Always spoiling the best things you do   
So red squares and wavy leaves   
Delicate glass kisses, delicate lips   
Russian autumn heart_

(Steve Kilbey)

 

His quarters were blue and warm, lulling him into a mild trance, and he let his mind wander over the shapes of things. A soft rap at his door made him open his grey eyes to a room cast in dulcet semi-darkness. Chiaroscuro, Raikov thought, drowsily, pleased with himself. There actually was a word for it, even if it wasn’t a Russian word.

He reached languidly for the bedside table, where his standard issue officer’s pocket watch lay tipped on its side, the hasp slightly cloven, stainless steel glinting in the moonlight. He had never upgraded it, despite Volgin’s insistence that a GRU Major had no need for an enlisted man’s watch, and could very well find himself kitted out nicely indeed by the generosity of his superior commander.

Raikov glanced at the face, frowning. He was surprised to see how much time had passed since he’d first lain down. It was now well past midnight. Another knock sounded and Raikov remembered why he was awake in the first place.

“Yes, I’m coming,” he said, quickly. He rose from the bed, catching his cap in his fingers and settling it on his head once more. Certainly no one would expect him to be wearing it at this hour, in the privacy of his own quarters, but somehow he felt more at ease either entirely in uniform, or entirely out.

He opened the door to find Volgin towering there, brute with strength and granite-cheeked, strapping in his snug-fitting coat, the very image of Soviet idealism captured in a living monument.

“You are an enormous man,” observed Raikov, presently, re-affirming the obvious for no one’s particular benefit. No matter how familiar the Colonel had become to him, it was still enough to give him pause. Volgin was awe-inspiring, immense in every way. When he wasn’t standing directly in front of you, it was difficult to hold the entirety of him in your mind.

The Colonel cracked a smile, another jag in his angular features, as he looked Raikov up and down. “What, no salute?” he grunted, amused.

“Did you come here to see me salute you, sir?”

“Huh,” Volgin said noncommittally, raising his eyebrows.

“I wasn’t expecting you, Colonel. I’m surprised to see you here.”

Volgin sauntered past him to the center of the room, glancing around curiously. “If Mohammed will not come to the mountain, then the mountain must come to Mohammed, eh Major?”

Behind his hulking back, Raikov's lips formed a faint smile. He liked Volgin. It was unavoidable, and unfortunate. He loved the things Volgin did to his body.

Raikov would not go so far as to say he enjoyed it, for it was unthinkably untoward for a good Russian to declare that he enjoyed anything. One might like a thing, and one might love it--no matter how much trouble it brought down. But it was somehow improper to articulate the pleasure it brought. After all, life was survival. Endurance.

He crossed to where the Colonel stood, facing him brazenly, as he had the first day they’d met. Volgin’s lips curved into a wicked smile as his eyes traveled over Raikov’s impeccable uniform. “Aren’t you a little...formal...under the circumstances, Major?”

“What circumstances are those?” Raikov replied, tilting his head deliberately, so that his blond hair just touched down on the lapels of his coat. “I think they have yet to develop.”

Volgin’s eyes caught a glimmer of light and held, a carnal spark. “Indeed, Vanya,” he murmured. “Indeed.”

The Colonel was a striking man, not only in presence, but physically; whatever else may have been said about him, that much could never be disputed. Not just for his sheer stature, either, but for other, equally arresting characteristics. His face was artfully scarred, enhanced rather than disfigured, due purely to luck and the underlying canvas. Three long vertical jags marked the expanse from his hairline to his brow, like the long-dry beds of distant rivers, souvenirs of something severe, of a profoundly altering day that Volgin rarely alluded to. Similar figures were etched in the stone of his cheek, though these were slightly more shallow.

In the past Raikov had traced curious fingers along them, fearless, contemplating their origin and nature. He found them quite aesthetic, he decided, not unlike the vibrant markings of a predatory animal. It was nature’s gentle way of saying ‘do not touch’. Taken along with the inhuman musculature, the ensuing effect was something along the lines of Volgin as a brute beast, narrowly forced into uniform, the stiff shape binding him; reforming him into something resembling a man.

The most shocking damage of all was something Raikov had long ceased to notice--a large and jagged-edged weal on the left side of Volgin’s face, spanning the area between cheek and jowl, where the skin had been charred and now was ridged with darkened scar tissue like nightmare crepe. Had it been startling at first? Ivan truly couldn’t recall. Surely it must have been at least a little unsettling.

But the truth was that Volgin’s features, like the man himself, were overpowering; easily conquering any blight that thought to impinge on such Darwinian achievement. The eyes that regarded him from beneath that proud and ominous mantel of brow were pale and luminous like opal, with the same uneasy fire. His hair was bright and immaculate, combed back from his face defiantly, as if the scars were flowers to be looked at.

Raikov’s awareness was drawn, as always, to the bold primary lines that defined his marble countenance--the strong jaw, the arctic curve that crowned his face in a sharp and perfect widow’s peak.

Meanwhile, Volgin had been watching him.

“Vanya,” he rumbled. “I’ve missed you. I thought you would be waiting for me.” He reached out, curling his fingers beneath Raikov’s tie, drawing him closer. His gloved hand stroked the Major’s face. "Such beautiful things need attention.”

Volgin moved his other hand swiftly downward to grasp Ivan's cock through the fabric of his uniform. Raikov frowned, narrowing his eyes. Volgin paused, and inclined his head with a minimal gesture, amused recognition in the smile that gradually formed across the severe face, like a crack in the tundra. “Still upset, are you? I get it.”

Ivan said nothing, just regarded him with dispassionate intensity. He felt himself hardening beneath the merciless grip of the Colonel’s vast hand. It never failed.

Volgin’s lip curled further. "You want a little payback, don’t you?” He chuckled. “Fine, fine, Vanya. You know I’m perfectly happy to do it your way.”

Raikov lifted his head, his eyes as cold and unyielding as a carved saint’s, shifting his stance so that the Colonel’s hand came into even greater possession of his crotch. He raised his mouth upward, as if offering it, but as Volgin moved forward, he turned his head.

Volgin shuddered. “Vanya,” he groaned, “You’re destroying me.” He fell to his knees before the Major, with more grace than any man his size should have possessed. At one time, it might have surprised Raikov, but he had grown accustomed to the Colonel as a living contradiction. “You’re cruel, Ivan,” he murmured, slowly running his massive hands up Raikov’s thighs, coming to rest on his taut and jacketed hips. “So very beautiful. But cruel.”

Raikov knew that Volgin was aroused. It showed in those deep-set eyes that reflected his own image back to him, transformed by adulation. The Colonel saw him as flawless, ruthless. A piece of treacherous art. A jackbooted, earthbound archangel dragging dust-tipped wings on the common ground of Groznyj Grad.

“I’m not cruel,” he said.

Volgin laughed, soft and low in his throat. “You’re even more beautiful when you lie.” His fingers clenched into the stiff olive wool, buckling the fabric. “See how you make me crawl?”

“That’s not cruelty, Borisich,” said Raikov. He pulled back his hand and struck Volgin sharply across the face. As always, the great Russian absorbed the shock of the blow impressively, not recoiling an inch, nor flinching in the least.

Ivan narrowed his eyes and backhanded him a second time, harder.

A grunt escaped the Colonel’s stoic lips, followed by an appreciative noise. “Another,” demanded Volgin.

Raikov frowned. “No,” he murmured, petulantly. “I don’t think so.” He turned and walked away, adjusting his cap.

Volgin had already risen from his knees, leviathan-like, turning his head. “Vanya...”

Raikov let himself collapse indolently onto the bed, reaching for the novel that sat half-read, hyper-flexed at the spine, splayed open page-down on the nightstand. The Colonel’s pursuit was immediate and relentless. He crossed the room in spare, unhurried strides, and Ivan smiled inwardly. How well he’d come to know the sound of those boots, that steady, unremitting gait.

Now Volgin stood, looming over him, motionless in the semidark, save for his powerful hands slowly unbuttoning his three-quarter coat. As he reached the third button, a tiny riffle of incandescent lightning crackled softly over his shoulder and across his monumental face. Ivan’s peripheral vision registered the movement, and though he kept his gaze unresponsive and focused on the book in his hands, he couldn’t help but feel a little quickening in his loins.

Volgin threw the coat aside without taking his eyes from the bed, and Raikov looked up slowly, his pale blue eyes unyielding, tracing the lines of Volgin’s over-broad shoulders and lightning-scarred arms. He had the body of a common street pugilist, but the mythic proportions of a folk tale. The glinting threads of circuitry in his red vulcanized bodysuit seemed ornamental in the half-light, rather than functional. Essential.

Raikov felt himself stiffening again beneath the sheltering hem of his jacket, as Volgin effortlessly ascended the bed.

He reached forward, his gloved hands cupping Ivan’s face. Raikov allowed his jaw to be lifted, as Volgin’s eyes narrowed appreciatively, drinking him in. “Perfection,” he murmured. “That face.”

Powerful hands eased down Raikov’s body, over the structured breast of the belted coat, coming to rest on the buckle. It yielded to a single jerk, and his waist was unbound. Ivan, as always, was amused at how exposed he felt, with just that one minor item not squarely in place. Like the old folk tale of the woman whose head was kept in place only by the ribbon around her neck.

Volgin let the ends of the belt fall to either side of his body, along with his Makarov in its holster, unfastening the attached shoulder strap that crossed his chest. One more restraint removed, and Ivan breathed out softly, denying his own arousal so that his face did not betray him. He felt undone. Disarmed. But he also felt safe, strangely enough; sufficiently secure to be without his smart façade with Volgin’s massive hands reinforcing him, gripping him, smoothing over his form. And his greatest asset could never be stripped from him with reverent hands. Beauty was a devastating weapon that Raikov knew all too well how to wield.

The Colonel ran his finger beneath the edge of the Major’s coat, before pushing the buttons through, spreading it open. Ivan watched him, icy and aloof, channeling boredom and malaise with every ounce of will he possessed. Volgin’s smile held a kind of mercenary delight.

“I love it when you’re sullen,” he growled, ripping open Raikov’s shirt and running a gloved hand over the muscles of his chest. His other hand tore the black uniform tie from his neck, hurling it somewhere into the shadows at the edge of the room.

Raikov bit his lip reflexively, and surreptitiously covered his reaction, letting his blond hair fall forward in a soft cascade around his jaw, hiding his mouth. His shirt was shoved aside, his skin now fully exposed, taut and responsive.

“That’s what I want to see,” Volgin intoned throatily. “There's my perfect soldier.” His hand trailed down, unfastening Raikov’s breeches, rubbing over the stiffened contour of his cock approvingly.

Raikov steeled himself against the touch, steeled his gaze.

“You seem cold this evening, Ivan,” Volgin murmured. “Perhaps it’s the snow.” A dark smile creased Volgin’s face, making his eyes draw into luminous slits as he slowly removed one of his red vulcanized gloves, then the other. He rubbed his palms together, charging them, until they sparked and crackled, the excited dance of tiny lightning. “Let’s see if I can’t thaw you out a bit.”

The first descent of Volgin’s unusual flesh against his own was always a revelation. Raikov felt himself stiffen and bow before they even touched him, those gigantic hands, smooth and unlined from the protection of their constant housing. The current leapt to his skin before the any actual contact was made, drawing him upward. Volgin’s charge abated briefly and his palms followed Raikov’s descent, coming to rest on his chest.

“Vanya,” he purred fondly. “So strong.”

Raikov’s eyes fluttered open, centering on the Colonel’s. “That was nothing,” he said.

Volgin leaned forward, his mouth inches from Raikov’s, as his fingers found the slight peaks of his nipples. Raikov inhaled. He could smell Volgin’s skin, warm and masculine. The shock came an instant later, short and sweet and sharp, and Raikov felt his muscles contract, arching him into Volgin’s kiss, openmouthed, as current sparkled along the edge of their lips.

Volgin jerked his head back, breathing deeply, a satisfied grimace on his stoic face. “That’s it, Vanya,” he intoned, his voice low and labored. He ran his fingers down, over the ripples and knots of Raikov’s stomach, a light charge running on the tips, buzzing the surface of Raikov’s skin like a shiver intensified. “No one takes it like you do.”

“I can take more,” Raikov said at once, clenching his jaw, but Volgin shook his head indulgently.

“I could change your heartbeat, Vanya,” he murmured, “but I only want a change of heart.”

Ivan shuddered, feeling himself relent, knowing he could, now that he’d made his promised show of tantalizing resistance. 

Raikov knew what pleased the Colonel. It varied from day to day, but this was a perennial favorite, and always a good bet on the days when Volgin gave no obvious clues. He was intrigued by the idea of being mistreated by his beautiful lover, by what he perceived as Ivan’s merciless coldness. Volgin liked to subjugate himself to his Vanya. He liked to prove himself in the face of the Major’s feigned indifference, take his abuse like a burden beast, all the while declaring his adoration, stoic and steadfast, until he seduced him once more.

Keeping the heartless pretense was easy when Volgin obviously enjoyed it so much. But releasing it was even easier, and Ivan was all too ready to do so.

His hand slowly moved over and dropped the book onto the bed, where it cartwheeled up on its pages, fingerprints burnt into the paper--but Raikov didn’t notice, eyes closed, mouth parted, feeling the sensation of indecent pleasure sharpen to a knife’s edge. The lightning crackled down his thighs, bathing them in sensory torment, and when at last he felt Volgin’s attention shift to his cock and balls, he moaned aloud, as the strength in his legs was sapped and drawn away.

The Colonel swiftly divorced him from his tall black boots, expertly gripping the heels and pulling them off, and his breeches followed suit in a similarly hasty fashion.

Then he was utterly exposed at Volgin’s pleasure, his knees butterflied outward, his strong thighs trembling with the aftershocks of current.

Though his muscles were lax and wilted with shock fatigue, Raikov’s cock was hard as flint, rigid and obstinate. He gathered his strength and pulled Volgin’s face down to his own with a shaking arm. He pressed a shuddering kiss to the corner of that brutal mouth, a sign of acquiescence.

Volgin’s lips cracked a triumphant smile.

Raikov released him and fell back onto the blanket, feeling his body recovering, vigor flowing back once more, the trembling abated. He rebounded quickly from these jolts, something that pleased Volgin immensely, it was clear from the Colonel’s satisfied expression.

He pressed two fingers against Raikov’s orifice, letting them pulse with gentle electricity, willing the muscles to surrender their tension, demanding utter submission from Raikov’s body as well as his mind. “I’ll have you now, Vanya.”

With his free hand, Volgin deftly unfastened the groin of the intimidating insular suit that spanned his huge trunk like a second skin. The suit never left him entirely- it had been designed to channel his voltage, so that the task didn’t fall to his own mortal body. When he did remove it to bathe, it was in small sections, and only in isolation, in a special room with complex safeguards, what basically amounted, from what Raikov had seen, to a system of glorified, sophisticated lightning rods. It left little to the imagination as it was, molded wetly to every curve and angle of his strapping musculature.

Volgin’s cock was as impressive as the rest of him, broad and hard and massive. It jutted upward, curving forward in a pronounced arc that Raikov knew from experience was a physiological fringe benefit of no small merit. The room flashed briefly as Volgin stroked his palm over the shaft, slicking its vast contours with the contents of a small bottle that was procured and disposed of before Raikov even registered its presence. His cock crackled with lightning at the touch of the lubricant, and small ultrablue currents zigzagged along the length.

“Vanya, I’m going to have to lift you,” said Volgin, eyeing the Major’s room with a cursory glance. “Seeing as we’re not in my room, we don’t have the same…precautions in place.”

It was true. Volgin’s quarters were discreetly rubberized, every surface insulated, from wall to ceiling. There was no metal, nothing conductive. Raikov had learned that 10,000 volts could be taken easily enough, provided the voltage had no outlet to seek the ground.

Volgin’s powerful arms curled under his thighs, pulling him upward. The Colonel rose from the bed, unhindered by the addition of his weight, effortlessly lifting him. Raikov groaned, feeling the flex of Volgin’s muscles against him, letting himself fall against the mammoth chest.

Volgin’s voice was low in his throat, warm against the shell of Ivan’s ear. “What have we here? Gymnast’s rings, Vanka?”

“I like to keep myself in form, sir,” Raikov ground out, breathless.

“Anyone can see that,” Volgin murmured, tightening his arms, shifting him closer, so that his cock grazed the hard wall of The Colonel’s stomach. “Are they wood, Vanya? The rings?”

Raikov nodded.

“Grab them.”

But Ivan was already reaching upward, curling his fingers into the familiar handholds, feeling them take his weight. The still rings had always been one of his best disciplines, but this particular trick required no exertion, no physical mastery, no steadying isometric give and take. There was only Volgin, holding firm beneath him, and the slick, tingling graze of his cock, hot and alive with the threat of voltage and the hardening blood of lust.

Volgin’s hands gripped Raikov's ass, angling his cock so that the head pressed crudely against his entrance, the blunt promise of the intended trajectory implicit. “Just a little love buzz first, Vanya,” he whispered, thickly. “You know the drill.”

“Yes,” Raikov said. “Yes, sir.”

Raikov felt the broad, dulling impact of the strike shoot through him. His fingers clenched around the rings, his back stiffened and arched. In the wake of the shock, his muscles went limp, and Volgin pushed forward at once, driving his cock ruthlessly upward, into Ivan’s unresisting body.

Volgin stayed motionless for a moment, while the Major regained his strength. A rumble of appreciation rolled from his scarred throat, curling against Ivan’s neck like a languid wave.

And Raikov smiled. He opened his eyes to half-mast, meeting Volgin’s icy gaze, glazed and reverent. “Sometimes I really like you, sir.”

Volgin pulled him down harder, broad hands pressing into Raikov’s flesh with just enough force to court bruises, but not actually mark him. Volgin’s eyes were luminous and narrow, like slits of the ever-light winter sky. 

“You’ll want not to touch the wall,” he murmured, ominously.

He began thrusting brutally upward, whipping himself into a reliable cadence, steadying Ivan’s hips with firm but caressing hands. Raikov was not suffering. His head was thrown back, the soft brush of his hair crossing his shoulder blades in time with Volgin’s movements, relishing the all-consuming buzz that lit his body and overwhelmed his senses.

“Ah, Vanya, no one else will ever know how beautiful you are right now.” Volgin kicked up the amperage, abruptly, watching the response with grim satisfaction. "My little tin solider,” he purred. “Steadfast, uncomplaining.”

“Harder, sir." Ivan was barely able to speak, but he formed the words through sheer force of will, at the mercy of the Colonel’s electrified flesh, which filled him with power and struck him to his core, driven up inside him and emanating throughout his straining form.

“My Vanya,” murmured Volgin fondly. “No one else can take it like you.”

Sometimes Raikov marveled at his own appetite for punishment. How he tightened his arms against sensation, letting it maul him like an animal, resisting only to make it drive its teeth in more and more deeply. He took it well, oh yes. He took it very, very well.

Long before he’d come to Groznyj Grad, and Volgin, he had briefly worried whether he could reliably fulfill the requirements of this objective. Whether he would find himself betrayed by his own body, horrified, repelled, unable to commit the act with physical sincerity. He’d heard daunting anecdotal evidence of Volgin’s sexual appetites; his prowess, his predilections, his penchant for carnal brutality. Then of course, there were the indelible whispers of Sakharov’s experiments, the ones that had left Yvegeny Borisovitch Volgin irreparably changed at an elementary physical level, marked with the affliction of an unpredictable force of chaotic nature--carrying a charge of ten thousand volts inside the confines of mere humanity.

A lesser man would have broken like a toy under a burden of such magnitude. But Volgin proved to be remarkable. Indeed, he had seemingly harnessed the electrical demon inside him, channeled it into a part of his greater self, like a soldier begins to see a gun as less an alien and dangerous device, and more an extension of his own hand.

Control. Volgin wanted it, and took it.

And when Volgin reached for him, Raikov’s cock never failed to respond; it was as ingrained and involuntary as a salute, by now. His primal mind had formed its own favorable opinion of Yevgeny Volgin, apart from the purpose of the mission, and his body concurred.

That was good, he thought, as Volgin leaned in to kiss him roughly. It made things easier.

Raikov could feel the heat building in his hands, and the transference. The wood of the rings was beginning to char beneath his fingers. It would burn soon, literally catch fire. The call of orgasm hovered in the air. He could feel the weight of its descent. “I want all of you, sir,” he ground out. "Every inch."

Volgin chucked breathlessly. “You know you won’t last long.”

It was the inevitable and automatic reaction to his ultimate electrical stimulus. The contraction was intense and immediate. There was no room for negotiation. So far Volgin had been prolonging the act by keeping his penetration relatively shallow and the current controlled; constant and low.

“Neither will you, sir."

He released one of the rings and cocked his fist. Gathering his strength, he struck Volgin squarely in the jaw. A low sound rumbled from the Colonel’s throat, a sound of threatening arousal. “God, yes, Vanya…let me kiss your hand.”

Raikov drew a jagged breath and punched him again, shocking his fingers. He cursed. Volgin groaned, gripping him tighter.

“Third time’s the charm, sir,” Raikov said, letting him have it.

His fist connected with a solid snap, and Volgin gave a guttural roar.

It was almost immediate, the upsurge, the reaction- Raikov felt Volgin’s cock shove deep into him as it erupted, liquid lightning crackling inside him, hitting all his triggers, as every muscle in his body clamped and his cock recoiled and released, arcing silken jets against the rubberized muscle of Volgin’s broad and solid stomach.

Blackness swung before his eyes, immediately following pleasure, eclipsing his awareness.

He collapsed, and Volgin’s arms enclosed him, carrying him to the bed. His consciousness returned quickly, and he murmured, blinking, as the Colonel laid him down, easing himself out of his body. A few riffles of blue current danced over his still form, then subsided, disappearing into the earth.

“Rest a moment, Vanya,” said Volgin. The Colonel lay down beside him, and Raikov felt his hair being caressed, with a hand re-gloved; safe to the touch.

Raikov opened his eyes slowly. The snow was still falling outside. The world was succumbing. His loins still radiated with warmth, and his whole body felt well-used, pleasantly sore, as if he’d run drills all day, or built a bridge. Not unlike it felt after a few hours of conditioning on the rings, he thought. It was a sated, languorous feeling that transcended pain to become almost luxuriant. “Kuwabara,” he murmured, slowly. “Kuwabara.”

A low rumble of laughter came from behind him. "A little late for that, I think.”

Raikov turned to look at him. “They say that lightning never strikes twice in the same place.”

Volgin was always slow to smile, as if behind that great face unseen mechanical procedures were required to set the process in motion. But when he did smile, it was a deeply etched expression, as enduring as a scar. “Lightning strikes whatever it’s most drawn to.” Volgin’s arm reached over and pulled him easily against his chest. “My little tin soldier."

"Zhenya." Raikov turned into him, grasping Volgin’s jaw, and easing the Colonel's mouth to meet his own. He let his lips part at once, lush and wanton, inviting a more intimate gesture.

Volgin kissed him deeply for a moment, before pulling back. “You know, there’s no need to call me ‘sir’ when I make love to you, Vanya.”

“It felt right in the moment,” said Raikov. “You can't expect me to go against aesthetic.”

A grunt. “Aesthetic, eh?” Volgin’s brow came to rest on his shoulder, warm and unyielding. “Come back to my room with me, Ivan. I want to sleep with you tonight.”

"Let me shower, then I’ll come.”

“These debriefings have taken a lot out of me. Literally.”

Raikov rolled his eyes, as if the topic bored him to the core. “Let your precious Major Ocelot deal with it.”

The Colonel chuckled. “Ocelot,” he said, shaking his head. “What an idealistic young bastard he is.”

Raikov paused. “Zhenya,” he said soberly, touching the scar that ran along Volgin’s cheek, to his mouth. “You must take care not to overextend yourself.”

Volgin laughed softly. “As long as I have you, Ivan, nothing can destroy me.”


	3. Chapter 3

_Now I've drunk a lot of wine and I'm feeling fine  
Gonna race some cat to bed  
Is this concrete all around  
Or is it in my head?_

(Mott the Hoople)

 

EVA was late. 

It didn’t surprise him, but it didn’t please him either.

Ocelot leaned against the cool wall of the barren corridor, scarcely resisting the temptation to shoot out the single bare bulb that scarcely illuminated this particularly lonely stretch of the officers’ quarters. It dangled forlornly, missing its metal-cage housing, taunting him with its regrettable, deviant existence.

A "Russian chandelier"; that was what the Finns called it. When they weren’t busy sharpshooting from their barns, apparently, they found time to make jokes.

He scowled, pointing his gun at it, then withdrawing, idly spinning the weapon in his hand with the deft fingers of a majorette, and the jaunty uniform of a majorette, to some extent, but the unmistakable bravado of a slate-eyed young man with a glacier-like chip of ice on his handsome shoulders.

“Something’s got to give,” he muttered.

EVA, or someone, needed to toddle along, and quick, because otherwise he was going to lose his mind from the galactically crushing boredom of it all. And then he would have to invent new ways to cope. And his coping skills were embryonic at best, far from attaining the evolution of his marksmanship. Eventually, Groznyj Grad would be minus a light bulb, and inevitably someone, most likely Raikov, would happen along, fall and break his Faberge face and render himself obsolete. And Volgin would shit thunder, and weave baskets out of lightning, or dry-swallow baby seals, or whatever expressed his newfound joylessness most effectively.

Ocelot wasn’t really afraid of Volgin, but all the same, common sense suggested that much as one should endeavor never to come between a she-bear and cub, the same diktat doubtless doubly applied to a violently electric ubermensch and his bombshell bimboy. That kind of negligent sabotage could only bring headaches.

Ocelot clicked the safety back into place, glowering at the lightbulb. A little flicker, interference from the storm, and now the light seemed different somehow.

Smarmier.

_They should have fixed that weeks ago _, he thought, dismissing it with prejudice. Fucking bureaucracy.__

__The sound of leisurely bootclicks on linoleum caught his attention and he jerked his head up. Someone was approaching from down the hall, and better yet, it sounded like the right person._ _

__“It’s about fucking time." He holstered his gun with a flourish, pushing himself away from the wall._ _

__The figure swung around the far corner and kept an unhurried pace, walking toward him._ _

__His signature swagger caught Ocelot’s attention and drew it, unwittingly, down to the steady strike of blackly gleaming boots, and slowly upward, over the strident lines of his jodhpurs and sleekly fitted coat._ _

__Ocelot’s full lips twisted into a smirk. “Well, what have we here? Major Ivan Raidenovich Raikov.” His eyebrows shifted, cocked and down-slanted, as if governed by a will of their own. “Hitting the showers, I presume. Take one for the team tonight?”_ _

__“What do you want, Ocelot? Don’t you have anything better to do than loiter in dark hallways?” Raikov’s gaze was arctic and impassive, but he also looked a little peaked. His flaxen hair swept his shoulders on either side of his face, stealing the brightness from his veiled eyes._ _

__“Actually, yes. Now that you ask,” sneered Ocelot. “But apparently it couldn’t be helped.”_ _

__Raikov touched the brim of his cap exaggeratedly and swept past him, leaving a palpable chill in his wake._ _

__Ocelot watched him with narrowed eyes as he continued down the corridor, toward the darkening end, and veered to the right, disappearing behind the swinging door of the officers’ locker room._ _


	4. Chapter 4

_Hey boy, where’d you get it from?  
Hey boy, where did you go?  
I learned my passion  
In the good old-fashioned school of lover boys_

(Freddie Mercury)

 

Ocelot pulled out his gun and spun it slowly around his finger, giving his wrist a little jog on each relapse to shake it up and keep the rhythm constant.

_Loop-the-loop, hook it, loop-the-loop._

He counted to twenty-five, looping the loop as many times, and there it was. He hook-checked the gun once more and slipped it back into his holster, like sleight of hand.

Then he followed Raikov.

Lithely stepping, he pushed the door open and walked in, and as he did Raikov turned, idly glancing over his shoulder. His visor cap and belted jacket were already gone, and he was working steadily toward a state of greater undress, deftly chasing the knot of his tie with lean, unhurried fingers.

Ocelot glanced quickly around the room, visually securing the space. Raikov turned back around, with a slight shrug of bemusement. Doubtless he had already done the requisite checks himself, but he was resigned to Ocelot’s special brand of paranoia and humored him with his customary grace.

Satisfied that no one was residence, Ocelot turned his attention back to Raikov, who was drawing off his tall black boots, leaning forward on a bench. His pale hair hung down below his jaw, hiding his eyes. “About yesterday,” he said.

Raikov smiled obscurely beneath the veil of his hair.

Ocelot began clapping, slowly, in rhythm. The sound was muffled, augmented by his sleek red gloves. “Well done, Major. I’d almost have believed it myself. You _are_ good at this.”

Raikov’s smile grew outward, slowly. “You doubted my reputation? I’m injured, Adamska.”

“I doubt everything before I see it with my own eyes. But you put on a damn good show.”

Raikov laughed quietly. He set his boots aside, and rose once more, running his fingers through his hair.

Ocelot took a leisurely stroll around the room, wagging his finger at nothing in particular. His spurs chanked on the linotile. It was not an unpleasant sound. "I’ve really got to hand it to you, Raidenich. You looked pretty pissed off. Like you actually wanted to go.”

Raikov didn’t look at him, taking a fresh towel from the locker. “I did want to go,” he said, after a moment.

Ocelot scowled. “What? Why the hell would you want to go to Graniny-Gorki? That place is a pit.”

Ivan shrugged slightly. “Not to see Granin’s lab.”

“I’m not following your logic here, Raikov.”

“There are woods all around it, aren’t there?" He sounded wistful. "I haven’t seen a fucking tree in months.”

Ocelot grimaced. “I’ve seen plenty. You aren’t missing much.”

Raikov seemed amused, but he didn’t reply. “Could you do me a favor, Adamska?” he ventured instead, looking up. “Could you make sure the sauna is on?”

Ocelot frowned, almost suspiciously. “The sauna?”

“Relax, Major,” Raikov said, laughing. “What do you think I’m going to do? Push you in and turn you into gingerbread?”

“Once never knows, does one, Major Gretel,” Ocelot retorted, but he sauntered over and craned his neck at the dial by the wooden door. “The red needle is pointing at 43 degrees.”

“Nudge it up, would you? To about 46.”

“Didn’t get enough punishment tonight?”

The Major ignored his slight. “Last time I checked the inventory, I was still a man. So that's Major Hansel to you.”

“Not according to your nom de guerre,” Ocelot countered, smirking, turning back toward the locker bays.

Raikov rolled his grey eyes tolerantly. “That’s pure semantics, and you know it. Just a minor concession to make the Genesis allegory work. The P- ”

Ocelot’s eyes bolted wide, as a gloved fingertip flew to his lips.

“-owers That Be are so fond of wry pastiche,” finished Raikov, with a supercilious smile.

Ocelot narrowed his eyes, but left the subject alone. He didn’t feel like playing Raikov’s games at the moment. He pulled out his guns and began spinning them once more, first this way, the other. “Why the sauna? Why not just take a shower?”

Raikov, who had resumed undressing, raised his eyebrows slowly. “Have you ever had a really good electric shock, Adamska?” He unbuttoned his light green shirt between thoughts, tapered fingers idly finessing down the front of his chest. “I don’t mean a little zap from a metal doorknob," he added. "But more like they give them in the psychological infirmary.”

Ocelot frowned. Wasn’t Raikov a product of the same venerable institutions as he was?

He eyed the Major’s profile carefully, reversing the direction of his twirling firearms once more, with a decisive motion. “I’ve been shocked by a guard fence or two,” Ocelot remarked evasively. “Nothing at a high enough voltage to kill, but more than enough to throw me onto the ground.”

Raikov nodded his assent. “Then you know. It doesn’t hurt, but it exhausts you. Drains you. Enervates you.”

Ocelot scowled. “What are you talking about? It hurt like hell.”

Raikov frowned. “Then you were probably grounded.” He didn’t seem particularly sympathetic.

Ocelot leaned against the wall, watching Raikov as he removed his shirt and hung it neatly in the locker beside his uniform jacket. There was no doubt that he was well-made. Anyone with a halfway objective eye could see that he was perfectly tuned for the role he inhabited.

“The sauna is very invigorating,” Raikov was saying, as he unfastened his breeches. “Gets the blood moving. It helps the fatigue.”

Ocelot averted his eyes, glancing covertly to the side, and when he finally looked back, Raikov had finished, a plain white officers’ issue towel wrapped low on his hips. His loins were half-exposed, the cut lines of his lateral obliques curving prominently on either side, forming an Adonis apron.

Out of habit, Ocelot made a study of him, as he studied all things, with the intent to always know the basest minutiae in the nature of his surroundings. Raikov’s body was unexpectedly muscular, he noted. It was gracious and lean as his uniform would suggest, but there was marked contour and definition, especially in the arms and legs. It drew Ocelot’s attention purely because it was unexpected. Those were hallmarks of physical training.

The Major apparently had some experience beyond administration and mercenary seduction. That, or the task of being Volgin’s lover was a conditioning program in itself.

Ocelot frowned. It wasn’t something he wanted to ponder.

“I picked up a liking for it while I was stationed in Porkkala,” Raikov said. “We made good use of the local amenities.”

Fucking Finland again. Ocelot scowled. Such a small and insignificant country had no business coming up twice in one night. 

As he considered all the reasons that Suomi Finland was absolutely inessential in the grand scheme of the cosmos, he became aware that Raikov was walking away, the sleek, soft edges of his hair swaying rhythmically against his bared shoulders.

“Where are you going?” he demanded, doing a double take, glowering at Raikov’s retreating form.

Raikov paused in front of the sauna, his hand curled around the wooden bar that served as a heat-safe door handle. “I suggest you get undressed. It’s more comfortable that way.”

Ocelot scowled. “Are you insane? Get into an oven with Volgin’s buttered bun?”

“There’s no safer place in Groznyj Grad than the officers’ parilka at 2 AM, Major Ocelot. It’s common knowledge that I’m here at that time, most nights. No soldier in his right mind would risk being seen anywhere near the Colonel’s man when he was naked and covered in sweat.”

“My point exactly." Ocelot glowered. "You must think I have a death wish.”

"Think about it, Adamska. The Colonel steers well clear of the showers. Water really doesn’t agree with him. Don’t you think he’d insist on accompanying me otherwise?”

Ocelot didn’t want to think about that.

“No one’s coming Ocelot. It’s a demilitarized zone.” Raikov inclined his head slightly. Then he smiled. As gestures went, it was nothing- merely a diminutive curve of his lips, but somehow it packed the impact of a supernova. “Look, I want a sauna. Badly. Do I have to charm you, Adamska? Don’t make me work. I’m tired.”

Ocelot’s brows drew together. Raikov might have claimed to be deferring his persuasive arts in the name of fatigue, but even in doing so, he was winsome. Ocelot wondered if he could ever actually turn it off, any more than he could suddenly cease breathing.

“Save it for Volgin,” he said, at last, narrowing his eyes. “All right. Just give me a moment.”

Raikov shrugged pleasantly. “Of course, comrade.”

He opened the door and slipped inside, a wave of amorphous heat escaping behind him, dissipating into the greater atmosphere.


	5. Chapter 5

_I  
Am a little tin soldier  
Who wants to jump into your fire_

(Steve Marriott)

 

“What took you so long?”

Ocelot glared at Raikov absently as he shut the door behind him. It was an ill fit, until it clicked into its niche, and then it abruptly became hermetic. “I guess field uniforms take longer to deconstruct than doll clothes.”

Raikov laughed silently, rubbing his eyes with one hand.

Ocelot took a seat on the middle bench, to the left. The air was thick with heat, almost gelatinous, and exhaling it required constant dedication. It seemed to stick to the walls of one’s chest, like tar vapor, and had to be pushed forth with conscious effort. It made him feel uneasy, as if it was imperative to remind himself to breathe- that if he didn’t, he could conceivably just forget, drop the ball, and wind up passed out here, nearly naked in self-imposed purgatory.

Co-agent or not, Ocelot didn’t relish the idea of being unconscious around Ivan Raidenovich Raikov. Or anyone, for that matter. But mostly him.

Raikov reclined languidly on the top tier, where the heat was the most intense, idly watching him. He might have expected to find Raikov looking exactly as he did, his skin dewy with sweat, his mouth parted as he respired, head tilted back in sensual relaxation, basking in the sweltering embrace of the room.

Wasn’t that his job?

Ocelot scowled, breathing steadily, his senses permeated with the heady tinge of hot pine. “This is therapy?”

“Only if you let it be,” murmured Raikov. He opened his grey eyes slowly, casually turning them toward Ocelot. “Don’t worry, Adamska. You don’t have to feel good if you don’t want to.” He rolled over on his shoulder, reaching downward for the bucket of water on the bench beside Ocelot.

“What are you doing?”

Raikov looked at him, amused. “What do you think I’m doing?” He pulled out a flat, wide ladle and flung the water on the stove, where it slashed across the rocks, sizzled and skittered with a violent hiss.

Ocelot confined his startled response, glaring. Seconds later a vortex of intense heat wafted up, pushing over his body like a nuclear wave, choking the air from the room. For a hung moment it was almost unbearably hot, and Ocelot closed his eyes against the overwhelming pressure of the atmosphere- then it slowly ebbed and subsided, gradually fading back to the more tolerable climate of mild hell.

Raikov exhaled into the stillness, a dry sound in the listless air. “That was good. Don’t you think, Adamska?”

“I think that if you do that again, I’ll shoot you.”

“Do that, and you’ll have cozy up to Volgin yourself. And I don’t think you have the constitution for it.”

Ocelot allowed himself a smile. “You make a good point, Raikov. I guess I’d better spare you.”

Raikov touched his brow with tapered fingers, tipping an imaginary cap in an idle gesture of gratitude.

Ocelot sighed, trying to lean back, to relax against the hot wood, mindful of the molten pitch that leached from the thick arctic pine in ambercast strands like fragrant honey. His attention was drawn once more to the bottle by the bench. He’d almost forgotten that he brought it in.

“What’s that you have there?” Raikov asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Someone left it in my locker,” Ocelot said, grimacing. “House vodka. Made right here at Groznyj Grad.”

Raikov laughed out loud. “That shit will make you blind, Adamska.”

“If you’re lucky.”

“Give me that,” Raikov said with a rare grin. “It’s undrinkable.”

“I had no intention of drinking it.”

“Let me show you something I learned from a friend.” Raikov took the bottle of cheap vodka and broke it over the sizzling rocks. The fumes hissed and the liquor steamed, filling the room with an alcoholic haze. “In times of need, you could get more people drunk like this, he claimed."

Ocelot frowned, and for a moment forgot the incredible discomfort of Raikov’s inferno. “I don’t believe it,” he declared. “The proof remains the same, and in any case, wouldn’t the alcohol evaporate almost immediately?”

“I don’t know, Adamska,” replied Raikov smiling mysteriously. “I’m not clever like you. But you’ll tell me if you start feeling funny?”

The predictable heat wave came again, but it was easier to weather this time. Perhaps vodka was not as disagreeable to the stove as vod. Or maybe he was just getting used to it. There was an almost companionable silence for a moment, and Ocelot felt himself beginning to acclimatize. 

Raikov sat motionless, absorbing the ersatz solarity like a reptile. His lips parted after a moment. “Electric stove. Not my first choice. But wood is impractical up here, of course. Like everything organic.”

“Speaking of electric things,” said Ocelot, "I saw Volgin leave your room. He looked pleased with himself. Does that mean you two kids have made up?”

“You could say that.”

“Good,” Ocelot said, wiping the sweat from his brow distastefully. “He’s a real joy to work with when he’s not getting any.”

Raikov smiled. “I’m taking my towel off now, Adamska.”

“What?”

“Fair warning, that’s all.” Raikov gave an easy shrug. “I need to rinse off.” He rose and pulled the towel from his hips, letting it fall on the bench.

“Why would I care about seeing a comrade naked?” said Ocelot, scowling.

“I agree, Adamska.” Raikov's tone was enigmatic. “Feel free to remove yours whenever you want.”

Ocelot’s lips pursed in a snarl; he glowered but he didn’t reply. He reached for his hip, out of habit, but of course he didn’t have his guns. Nothing to occupy his hands.

Raikov was clearly undisturbed by circumstance. He plunged the dipper into the barrel of cold water that stood in the corner, and raised it, tipping it over his head. His hand followed, massaging, slicking his pale hair back. Another dipper followed the first, water coursing over the sleek contours of his body and dripping onto the planks of the floor. “The cold feels good, Adamska. You should try it.”

He lathered his skin in a leisurely way, as if he enjoyed the process. Ocelot could smell the distinctive aroma of black tar soap, which was not standard issue. It must have been something Raikov managed to have specially procured, though he couldn’t for the life of him see why. Not that it was unpleasant; it had a certain earthy sub-sweetness, like double-salted licorice. Still, it was hardly an indulgence. He would have expected Raikov to exploit his favorable position for something more opulent.

“Heard anything over Codec?” Raikov asked, smoothing the water from his face, and Ocelot was jerked from his thoughts abruptly. “You wanted to talk shop. That’s why we’re here. Right?”

“Of course.”

“Have they picked their operative?”

“Not yet. They keep saying they’ve got someone almost in place.” He snorted. “For whatever that’s worth.”

Raikov nodded, looking preoccupied. Now he was rinsing, graceful fingers chasing suds over lucid skin, gilded and bathed in the warm, refracted tones of the wood. He drew another dipper, and the water ran clear. The arid heat wicked away moisture, and the rivulets beaded like liquid glass on his drying skin.

“Much better,” he said, and shook out his hair once more. It fell around his face in artful strands, freshly washed and gleaming, damp-darkened to a beachwood shade. “You, Adamska?”

“I’ll shower,” Ocelot said, coolly. “Do you have anything to report?”

Raikov shook his head. “Not yet. We didn’t...speak much, this evening. And you know as much as I do about Granin’s prototypes, if not more, since I haven’t been privy to the debriefings.”

“I have a feeling Granin’s going to come up short. Volgin’s not appreciating his ideas for what they are.”

“And what are they?” Raikov asked, curiously, tilting his head.

“Revolutionary," Ocelot said flatly. "All the better he doesn’t.”

Raikov nodded, reaching for his towel and wrapping it around his waist once more. “I should go, then, if there’s nothing else. The Colonel is expecting me.”

Ocelot’s lip curled. “Run, Major Goldilocks. Wouldn’t want the bear to find his bed unrumpled.”

Raikov paused. “Don’t get your story twisted, Adamska.”

“My mistake,” Ocelot said. “Gretelska.”

An arctic vault of Raikov’s brows was fleeting and gone, quickly replaced by a congenial expression. “It was a good sauna, comrade. Too bad we’re so insulated here. So far removed from the snow. Or the sea.” He smiled. “I could jump into either right about now.”

"Why would you do that?” Ocelot demanded, incredulous.

“It’s very cathartic."

“I’ve had enough catharsis for now.” Ocelot ran a hand back, over his sharply cropped hair. Sweat and moisture sparked from the roots, but the ends felt hot and dry.

“You’ll sleep well tonight,” said Raikov.

“And you? How will you sleep?”

“I always sleep well.” Raikov turned to go, but paused, his hand on the door. “You know,” he said slowly, “Hansel…gets put in a birdcage and is fed sugar night and day. Gretel…on the other hand…is put to work as the witch’s gofer, as I recall. Her right hand, baking and slaving. And it’s Gretel that kills the witch, Adamska. You may want to rethink how you assign your analogy.”


	6. Chapter 6

_Late at night when I'm lying in bed  
I've got to say a prayer for my daily bread  
And early in the morning when I'm still asleep  
You sit upon your throne making grown men weep_

(Steve Kilbey)

 

Ivan Raikov was partial to beauty. 

If he looked and didn’t find it, he would look until he did. Even a concrete world could be remade. Even at Groznyj Grad, there was organic beauty to be seen.

Admittedly, it was a rarified commodity. Harder to come by than coffee and cigarettes, but there it was, all the same-and Ivan wasn’t unhappy that he was required to keep its proximity. Ivan liked to look at Ocelot; liked his sullen mouth, his insolent eyes beneath his peaked brows. He liked his strange, shifting body mechanics, veering unpredictably between taut alacrity and languid insouciance.

Ivan liked Ocelot's over-animated face, the outsized expressions his teasing could provoke. It was a harmless enough diversion, and a light-hearted enough one, from his perspective, though he knew Adamska was wary of him. He trusted EVA as an agent, without trusting his weapon.

That was fair enough. He had a healthy respect for ADAM's guns.

As Ivan passed through the overhead skyway, he paused to look out at the artillery yard. Under the halo of sodium lights, soldiers were hard at work, unearthing the tanks and supply trucks that the snow had tucked in to slumber. The night shift was in full swing, feverishly shoveling snow and de-icing the tarmac, dousing it with buckets of boiling water that sluiced and steamed across the graying slush. The men were intent upon their task, like militant ants. Red lights flashed festively off the snow, and orders were shouted along with stridently pointed arms, as the soldiers jogged to obey, heads lowered to the chore.

When he’d left his quarters earlier, the whole vehicle yard had been a pristine field of sweetly blanketed tanks and convoy trucks, swathed into amorphous shapes, their identities betrayed only by gun barrels and headlights.

As a tableau, it was destined to be transient.

Groznyj Grad needed to be functional, needed those utility machines freed now, in the pre-dawn hours, before the day began. Weather could not impede the progress of GRU.

Raikov knew this, but he was privately pleased that come evening tomorrow, the snow would once again overwhelm the machinery, rendering it little more than an abstract contour drawing in minimalist tones of shadowed white. 

Meanwhile, the sky was a long way from lightening. 

He turned, smiling to himself, continuing his solitary walk down the still corridor. When he got to The Colonel’s quarters, he entered without knocking, gently pushing the door open. "Khui,” he muttered. “You’re too trusting.”

Trusting. Not exactly the word. More, overconfident, perhaps.

Surely the massive Russian needn’t worry about anyone in Groznyj Grad. The fear he inspired with his unnatural gifts was so great and viscous that it trickled down even onto the shoulders of the man everyone knew to be his lover. Fear by association. Intimidation by proxy.

Raikov undressed for the third time in as many hours, folding his uniform quickly and laying it on the seat of a chair. It almost felt like a ritual at this point.

He could hear Volgin’s breathing, deep and uneasy. The Colonel was asleep in the giant, stark bed, beneath the voluminous black satin bedding. Imported at great cost, those contraband linens. Luxuriant, but necessary. Synthetic. The pillows and comforter obscured the low, black patent vinyl-coated headboard, fitted with matched, built-in restraints that rarely saw use, for Ivan was unfailingly willing. They covered the vulcanized surface of the vast mattress beneath.

Raikov lifted the edge of the bedclothes and slipped beneath, feeling the smooth weft of the fabric brush against his freshly washed skin.

The human monument that was Volgin stirred, but didn’t rouse. He was lying on his stomach, head turned toward the wall, the broad plane of his shoulders spread out, rising like wings with each respiration. Volgin’s slumber was unquiet, if not tenuous, and the great body shuddered as if forced to reenact the whims of his dormant mind.

Raikov pressed his body against the Colonel’s, letting his arm fall easily into its customary position, curved over the massive hip, feeling Volgin’s body ease with the contact.

“Vanya,” he rumbled, softly.

“Yes,” said Raikov. “I’m here.”

He felt Volgin’s gloved hand close over his own, divorced from the touch of skin on skin, and he did his best to feel him anyway.


	7. Chapter 7

_There, smoke turns into serpents in the air  
Beware, there's no sanctuary anywhere  
On this very spot, a great city once stood  
It oozed with evil but it felt so good  
Well I don't know  
Where did it go?_

(Steve Kilbey)

 

Morning broke like a promise.

The sun shone brightly over Groznyj Grad like a conquering nimbus, and tipped the surrounding peaks, limning the barren outcrops of rock in fiery gold. 

He took the long way to the East Wing, around the outside of the fortress, so that he could breathe the thin, rarified air, walking along the edges of the buildings with at an unhurried clip.

They had cleared the grounds of snow, banking it up at the edges of each field, against the chain-link fences, and now the yards reclaimed their utilitarian desolation. The rows of silent tanks and generators looked like a tranquil graveyard. The early light bathed them in a solemn glow, warming the unforgiving metal of their bodies. When the same light fell across his face, Ivan wanted to smile, but that wasn’t something Major Raikov did lightly, so instead he raised his chin a little higher, in a way that would pass for disdain.

He strode into the East Wing through the front entrance, which felt unusual, since he usually came from the Officers’ quarters through the Weapons Lab. At the sound of his boots on the freshly waxed floor, the two closest men turned reflexively, offering whip-sharp salutes. “Sir.”

He ignored them pointedly and strolled past, toward the stairs.

The predominant colors of the East Wing were muted jade green and beige. It was not an unpleasant environment to work in. An effort had been made to invoke a comfortable atmosphere of learned efficiency. The main atrium comprised the height of both floors, boasting a high, vaulted ceiling. Walkways ran around the perimeter of the upper story, and two bridges joined the top floor across. To the left of the entryway, there were low black leather couches that no one ever sat on, flanked by large, nondescript potted plants that seemed to thrive, though Raikov had no idea who watered them. The floor was spotless, and sparely patterned, accented by subdued green diamonds of various sizes.

Cresting the stairs he rounded the corner and almost collided with a young soldier who was hurrying out of the War Room, his attention elsewhere.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Major, sir!” The soldier drew up quickly, stiffening his jaw. “Begging your pardon.”

Raikov compressed his shapely mouth in a displeased moue. The soldier held his salute, even after Raikov punched him in the solar plexus. He was impressed by the fortitude of that.

“I deserve worse, sir,” the soldier rasped, his eyes averted beneath his visor cap, his hand trembling at his brow.

Raikov returned his salute, narrowing his eyes. Then he continued the way the careless soldier had come, walking without haste, leaving the shaken lieutenant standing bowed in his wake like a great broken doll. He wouldn’t dare to clutch his stomach until the Major had rounded the corner.

Raikov sighed, feeling pleased about the morning’s prospects so far. He pushed open the heavy door, tossing the harrying edges of his hair back, prepared to face the new influx of freshly debriefed researchers, who were doubtless so traumatized by the ordeal they wouldn’t even be able to function.

Volgin cared little for consequence, yet he demanded results. It fell to Raikov to straighten out their twisted little mental strings ex-post-facto, which he inevitably did.

His infallible formula was equal parts sucrose and sadism, lovingly applied in liberal and unpredictable doses. It was the classic model of every abusive lover, really, nothing earth-shattering, merely reinvented and turned to his purposes, but so far it had served to kept them both honest and inspired. Raikov had been ready for the honeymoon period, to unveil his most dazzling smile and silver words, but when he walked into the War Room he frowned immediately.

“Good morning sir,” began another faceless uniform. “The Major-”

“What’s this?” he interrupted, stalking past him, as he saw Ocelot. He was standing over one of Granin’s pallid, anemic scientists, juggling his handguns with absent malaise. His head turned swiftly at Raikov’s approach. “Look who’s here,” he said, his voice light and menacing. “Catch a little extra beauty sleep, Major Raikov? It’s…oh-nine-hundred hours and some change,” he added, glancing at the institutional wall clock without disrupting his rhythm. “I’ve been waiting for thirty-two minutes. In the meantime, I was forced to entertain myself.” He caught one of the guns and pulled it back into his grip, pointing it at the scientist and squeezing the trigger, all in one fluid, faultless motion. Raikov moved forward reflexively before he heard the hollow click of the empty chamber resound. 

The engineer barely had time to recognize that impromptu roulette had just been played at his expense before Ocelot’s pair of Makarovs were back in their holsters, and the borrowed third returned to the hand of a soldier who stood nearby.

Raikov glared. “Keep your little party tricks out of my sector, Ocelot.”

Ocelot gave him the finger guns, pulling them back against his chest and releasing them. “No problem, Major. I didn’t come here to play in your dollhouse.”

“This is a research zone, Comrade Major. What do you need?”

“Colonel Volgin wants Dolukhanov.”

There was a pause, and Raikov smiled. “No,” he said, crisply.

Ocelot scowled. “That’s what I’m here for, Raikov.”

Raikov shrugged. “Tell him no.”

Ocelot laughed, shaking his head. “I don’t think so, Major. No, you tell him yourself, if Dolukhanov means that much to you.” Ocelot laid a red-gloved hand on the scientist’s shoulder. “Otherwise, he goes to the weapons lab.”

Dolukhanov was quaking, literally, when Raikov looked at him. He was pale, and academic in the most proverbial sense, black-haired, thin-necked, bespectacled. A whitecoat. A scientist, looking much like all the others.

“Obviously, I’ve never seen him before,” Raikov said coolly, “since he just came from Graniny-Gorki. Which leads me to my point. I can’t go handing my resources back without taking inventory of what they are.”

Ocelot tossed his head in annoyance. "He’s coming back, Raikov. He isn’t going _downstairs_.”

Downstairs. Verbal semaphore for the Interrogation room, which lay in the prison block, below the grounds. At the mention of the word, all the scientists began to fuss about with dials and papers, their concentration re-intensified by leaps and bounds.

“Fine,” Raikov said, after a moment. “Take him.”

“I’ll bring him right back,” reaffirmed Ocelot, with a smirk, as if Dolukhanov were a shiny bicycle, and not a beleaguered Armenian.


	8. Chapter 8

_You take my breath, I feel consumed  
Take it all- I want to know  
What lies behind your smiles and shells  
Wish I knew you well_

(Paul Weller)

 

By noon the sun had lost interest in the earth. By one, it hovered high above, shining detachedly, as if Groznyj Grad were an orphan it could hardly be bothered to disdain.

Even a slap was too much warmth to ask for from that bitch, thought Ocelot, as he left the sheltering blandness of the East Wing and crossed into the no man’s land between outbuildings. The world was hard and bright and cold. He didn’t mind. It was exhilarating, and it got the blood moving. That was always good.

Ocelot had returned at Volgin’s request, without Dolukhanov, but Raikov was nowhere to be found in the East Wing. The problem with Raikov was that he wasn’t ever reliably in one place or another, but Ocelot had an idea of where he might be, and since no better evidence had presented itself, he pursued it. As he rounded the North barracks, he could hear the sound of barking reverberating in the chill air. Here was a low, wide building with heated floors, painted with a line of red stars, outlined neatly in white. Here, they ate better than the prisoners. And here, Ivan Raikov was inordinately fond of spending large amounts of his time, both free and dutied.

Despite the indistinguishable parity of Soviet uniforms, his eyes found Raikov easily, catching on a fleeting glint of his hair, which had a familiarly sleek and singing reflection, rarified metal, like the flash of a gun. He was standing at ease in the dog yard, not smoking, whereas most men would have been- and that was another tell. Raikov didn’t smoke, not even for lack of better things to do. He cut an arresting figure in the cold, diamond afternoon, resplendent in his sharply tailored officer’s overcoat of dove grey, his boots gleaming blackly against the snowy ground.

Raikov turned to look behind him at the sound of his approach, and Ocelot was startled by the lucid grey of his eyes beneath the ash-colored fleece of his ushanka. A small smile graced his lips briefly, before drifting into oblivion. 

Ocelot joined him with a nod.

For a moment there was quiet, nothing but occasional barks of joy and the call of mountain birds above. It was pleasant somehow, to stand there, looking over the field and beyond, to the range of surrounding peaks and their valleys. The air was thin, but pure.

“Something on your mind?” Raikov said, affably, at last.

“How do you know I’m thinking of anything at all?”

Raikov smiled. "Come now, Adamska. You’re always thinking.”

“Some things are beyond my comprehension.”

“You wonder how I can do it."

“It crosses my mind.” Ocelot’s words were evasive, but his tone was unflinching.

Raikov shrugged. “It’s not a bad assignment, as these things go. The Colonel has his moments, I confess, and most of them are in the bedroom.”

A slight breeze struck through, chilling the unprotected skin on the back of Ocelot’s neck, riffling the edges of Raikov’s bright hair. “You enjoy it?” Ocelot was genuinely disturbed by the revelation. “Being his lover?”

It was a question uttered with his typical bluntness, but Raikov smiled, and seemed to find it almost charming. “I don’t dislike it.”

Ocelot clapped a gloved hand over his neck, shielding it from the biting kiss of the wind. “I don’t understand you, comrade. Doing what you have to, that’s one thing. We all make sacrifices. But he's a monster. I don’t understand how you can like what he does to you.”

“I would think you’d understand better than anyone."

“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Ocelot. “Volgin’s never so much as touched me.”

“Of course not.” Raikov agreed, reasonably. “Why would he?”

Ocelot scowled. His gloved fingers touched down wistfully on the stock of his gun. "Are you insulting me?”

“Not at all. That’s part of why I’m here. To see that he doesn’t.”

Ocelot stared, ruminating on the implications of Raikov’s words.

“Everyone has a specialty, Adamska. You’re a catalyst, a change agent. I run your interference. I insinuate myself in sensitive places and learn intimate secrets. I shield you from the wolf, so you can work. I do what I do, and I do it well.”

"I understand your job. I don't understand you."

Raikov gazed at the horizon. "I understand you."

"Do you."

"You and he aren't so different. You both crave control. You re-mint reality and bend the world to your whims. He does so with brute force. You do it with cunning. What you have in common is the desire. That, and your inexorable persistence."

“And because of that, I should want to beat the shit out of a pretty mannequin behind closed doors?”

Raikov’s eyes flickered, and Ocelot thought it might have been embers of genuine anger that he saw there, for the slightest of moments, before Raikov doused them once more into that implacable glacial blue. “Exactly the opposite, comrade. Those who control the world outside closed doors want nothing more than to give up that control behind them. Long to give it up, in fact. Volgin is no different than any powerful man.”

Ocelot smirked. “Are you saying that you dominate him?”

“He subjugates himself. Voluntary submission, we call it. You can’t argue with a man who knows what he wants.”

“That’s impossible. The man’s a psychopath and a sadist, pure and simple.”

“He’s a sado-masochist,” Raikov corrected, mildly. “He likes to dish it out and take it. So long as he takes it from me, that is.”

“His pet.”

“If you like.” Raikov smiled that strange, small smile. It seemed to bloom unnoticed, in the most unexpected places. “How funny, that all this time you naturally assumed I was just a pretty mannequin, as you said, gamely allowing myself to be brutalized.”

“And what if Volgin wanted it that way?”

“What if he did?”

“Would you allow it?”

Raikov continued to smile. “If the mission demanded it.”

“You’re serious.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Raikov looked amused. The icy air stained his lips with translucent pink, and Ocelot thought they were impossibly treacherous. “You have such a narrow view, _krasavets_. Things are never black and white. Especially not here. In Groznyj Grad, everything is grey.”

Ocelot’s eyes narrowed. “A word like that, coming from you. Some kind of joke?”

“I don’t makes jokes, Adamska.” Raikov turned toward Ocelot. “You’re a good-looking man. I’m not above saying so.”

Ocelot paused. A small bell of alarm rung somewhere inside him, rattling his ribcage. “Sure,” he managed, coldly. “Sincerity is your business, after all.”

“Never more so than when you’re paranoid.” Raikov smiled, reaching out, finding Ocelot's face with his gloved hand. Ocelot stared, taken aback. Ivan’s eyes were liquid and intense, utterly attuned to him, as he drew his fingers lightly over his cheekbone and down to the corner of his mouth. A strange tingle rose up in the wake of his touch. A pulse resounded somewhere lower.

Ocelot felt the bizarre, intrusive urge to turn his face into the caress, to let his lips meet the sleek leather of Raikov’s fingertips. The impulse was foreign to him, and he didn't like it. In the next beat he felt a contrary urge, violent and reflexive, to reach up and knock his hand aside. He did neither. Instead, he stood fast; frozen there in the snow. Raikov made no attempt to do more than he had, and the unguarded moment broke slowly, as he let his hand slip away and steal into the warm pocket of his coat once more.

“Dolukhanov,” Ocelot informed him, in the next breath, studiously avoiding his eyes, “has proved to be of more interest to the Colonel than first expected. He’s been taken to the Interrogation room.” His voice was perfect, measured, as if nothing had happened.

Raikov paused. “Is that what you came to tell me?”

“Volgin sent me to bring you back,” Ocelot said.

A volley of barks and yips erupted from the adjoining exercise yard, as the dogs were loosed to play in the snow.

Raikov nodded, after a moment, pulling down the brim of his ushanka. "All right. Let’s go.”


	9. Chapter 9

_Close your breath and hold your eyes  
Turn the corner, a surprise, and there you are  
When our lives are run by evil freaks  
While walking through their moves  
He seeks to keep you in your pigeon-hole  
And bash you if your soul steps out of line._

(Steve Marriott)

 

“He said he needed twenty minutes,” Ocelot said. “Alone.” 

The snow crunched, glasslike, beneath their boots as they walked. It sounded inordinately loud to him in the quietude of late afternoon.

“He needs a lot less than that,” Raikov replied, evenly. “He wanted twenty minutes.”

Ocelot knew that, of course, but he hadn’t thought to split hairs over the semantics of Volgin’s intentions.

“He likes to drag these things out,” added Raikov. “He doesn’t really interrogate, you know.”

Ocelot knew that too. “So much for Dolukhanov," he said with a smirk.

"I’m fairly sure he was KGB,” Raikov said. “He had that…patina about him.”

“A KGB plant in Granin’s lab? That’s not unreasonable.”

“Doesn’t matter much in any case.”

They reached the doors of the prison wing and wordlessly tapped the snow from their boots before stepping inside. Already they were back in form, hardly acknowledging one another, Raikov’s face an impenetrable mask of haughty disinterest. Ocelot followed Ivan down the staircase and into the hall, his gait leisurely, lagging slightly behind Raikov’s more industrious bootstrikes.

The door to the interrogation room was open, and two soldiers exited as they approached, a limp human form supported between them, his head bowed, toes dragging across the floor. Alarming red had blossomed unevenly through his coat, intermittent with unblighted white, a nasturtium patch in stark and modern abstract.

“Hold up,” called Raikov in his clipped, polished tone. The soldiers stopped, turning in tandem, the dormant body between them conceding without will, like a parasitic triplet.

Raikov lifted the scientist’s chin, looking over his battered features, raising the lid of one bruised eye with a precisely applied index finger. His assessment was perfunctory, almost clinical, and abruptly concluded.

“Major, Colonel Volgin gave us orders to clear-” one of the soldiers ventured, looking concerned.

“Then you’ll do whatever he said, of course,” affirmed Raikov dismissively. He let the man’s head drop without fanfare, to loll, once more, senselessly between his slackened shoulders.

Ocelot moved up alongside him, unobtrusively. “And how’s Volgin’s handiwork today?” he drawled, sotto voce.

Raikov’s face was utterly devoid of reaction. “Dolukhanov is mince,” he replied succinctly. “I expected nothing less.”

“Dead?”

“If he’s alive, he’s concussed into oblivion,” murmured Raikov, through scarcely parted lips. “His irises were dilated, completely black.”

This earned a scowl from Ocelot. “I bet he gave up exactly nothing.”

“You know that’s never the point with Volgin.”

Ocelot paused, his lips twisting covertly. “And you think I’m like him.”

Raikov glanced at him briefly, his gaze unreadable. “You’re such a literalist. I only implied that you should understand the burdens of control. In the most general sense.”

He thought he saw the ghost of that tiny smile playing about Raikov’s lips, before he turned and walked into the Interrogation chamber. Ocelot followed at a decent interval, spinning his guns slowly, rotating his hands as he did so that they formed complex pinwheels.

The air in the chamber was static, charged with kinetic energy and heavy with the smell of blood.

“Major,” Volgin hailed, looking up and spying Raikov. A dark grin bloomed over his rugged face. “Where’s Ocelot?”

“I’m not his keeper, sir,” Raikov replied, indifference written in every curve and angle of his features.

“I’m right here, Colonel,” said Ocelot. He shot Raikov a belligerent look, to which he smiled. It wasn’t his charming smile, but the supercilious one he reserved for his role.

“You two,” chuckled Volgin, pulling on his gloves. He flexed his fingers slowly, looking at them with satisfaction.

“Colonel, I saw them carrying the scientist out,” began Ocelot.

“Yes,” Volgin agreed, his brow clouding. “Unfortunate for him. That bastard didn’t tell me a thing.”

“And he definitely won’t be saying anything now, sir. You should really let me handle the interrogations.”

Volgin rolled his head to the side, cracking his neck. A little spark of lightning feathered up the lateral side of his throat. “Don’t worry, Ocelot,” he said, amused. “I’m not planning to let your talents go to waste.”

He crossed the room, pausing before Raikov. A smile crossed Volgin’s face, shadowy and flickering. “Or yours, either, Ivan.” His massive hand shot out, grasping Raikov’s crotch firmly.

Ocelot cringed involuntarily, but immediately straightened his expression.

Raikov let out a soft breath and rolled his shoulders back, eyes closing briefly. There was a smile on his face, one that Ocelot didn’t recognize; languorous, lips parted and showing a sensuous edge of teeth.

Ocelot shuddered, but he was unsure which of his reactions triggered the reflex. He narrowed his eyes, as the realization hit him. He was conflicted. Something about it made him conflicted, when he shouldn’t be. Surely there was only one response to such a display, and even then, only two choices to draw from: fraternal pity or abject indifference. 

He set his jaw and averted his eyes as Volgin released his hold on Raikov, striding purposefully toward the door.

“Come on,” the Colonel grunted, brusquely. “This concerns the both of you.”

Ocelot followed immediately, without looking at the Major, his spurs clanking on the concrete. “What is it, sir?” he asked, ruthlessly suppressing his knee-jerk unease. “With respect to Comrade Raikov, I can’t imagine what could possibly concern us both.”

Volgin smiled ominously. "No?”

Ocelot’s eyes widened. “Colonel…”

Volgin looked amused. His lips curved further, courting a rictus. “Don’t worry, Ocelot. As entertaining as it would be, I don’t have time to orchestrate something like that.”

In his peripheral vision, he was aware of Raikov, laughing silently, open-mouthed. He glared surreptitiously to his side.

Now they were outside in the brilliant, declining afternoon once more, flanking Volgin dutifully as he marched across the artillery yard, a conquering behemoth in his uniform greatcoat. Scattered salutes assaulted them from all directions, but Volgin seemed oblivious to these gestures, his gaze reserved only for the glory of Groznyj Grad itself, looking over each tank and barrel with obvious satisfaction.

“Granin has proved extremely cooperative,” he informed them, as they passed the generator yard and rounded a chain-link fence. “He’s more than willing to work under the direction of GRU, and to continue to work on this... ‘metal gear’ of his, so his lab will be returned to him. Restructured, of course. But with full resources and manpower.”

Taking a shortcut, they entered the Weapons Lab through a secondary utility door, as a soldier ran to hold it open.

Ocelot was absently glad for the cosseting warmth of the East Wing once more. He disliked the winter weight uniform additions, preferring his red beret to an encompassing ushanka, and the mobility of his sharp black field patrol ensemble to a bulky officers’ overcoat. Moreover, he hadn’t planned on being outside to quite the extent he’d found himself this particular day, and while he would never admit to freezing, he was definitely not oblivious to the cold.

“You’re sending all the scientists back to Graniny-Gorki?” he clarified, as Volgin seemed to have lost his train of thought.

“And then some,” replied the Colonel, without hesitation, so perhaps he had been thinking about it, after all. “Under the constant supervision of GRU troops, of course.”

“It’s a good idea, sir.”

“I’m glad you think so, Major. I’m sending you to oversee and implement security precautions, both at the Laboratory and around the perimeter.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

Volgin nodded. "You’ll take as many men as you need. You have open approval on requisition. Whatever you necessitate, Major Raikov will sign off on. He has Colonel-class clearance, and the authority to act as my emissary.”

“Thank you, sir.” Ocelot knew the lay of the land around Granin’s lab well enough to realize that while it was hardly impenetrable, with a few adjustments and an adequate patrol in place, infiltration could definitely become a considerable obstacle.

Volgin turned his head to look at Raikov, his manner relaxing into familiarity. “As for the research and administrative aspects of the facility, I’m sending you, Ivan. I expect you to support Ocelot and field his requests, as well as coordinating the re-establishment of all lab and building protocol.”

“Of course, sir,” Raikov answered readily. “Leave it to me.”

Ocelot glanced in his direction, briefly, noting that Raikov looked genuinely pleased, probably more so at the prospect of seeing trees than at commanding the reorganization of a weapons facility.

Was it some sort of atonement on the Colonel’s part? 

Ocelot couldn’t help but wonder, even though Raikov was inarguably the best man for the job. He single-handedly ran the day-to-day operations of the East Wing, so his assignation made sense in this case. Certainly as much as his own.

Still, he was surprised that Volgin was willing to part with his inamorato for so long a period, much less allow him to take part in the reconnaissance of such a remote area.

They were inside the East Wing proper by now, walking across the upper atrium walkway and into the War Room. While activity continued, conversation fell at once to a low buzz. Ocelot felt a cynical smile contort his lips at the anxiety of the ashen-faced scientists, stricken with awe at the sight of Volgin’s unsettling personage at such close proximity.

“Your office, Major Raikov,” ordered Volgin. “You too, Ocelot.”

Raikov nodded and ran his clearance card, as the door slid open, admitting them.

Once inside Volgin turned to face them. “The convoy trucks will be sent tomorrow morning, with Granin’s scientists, and our troops and supplies. You’ll be leaving in three days, by helicopter. You should coincide with their arrival.”

Raikov frowned. “Will he be taking the Ocelot Troop?”

“Of course,” the Colonel affirmed. “They’re certainly invaluable. However,” he said, directing his words to Ocelot, “I don’t want you neglecting the supervision of the regular company at the expense of elitist grandstanding.”

“I won’t, Colonel.” Ocelot pulled out one of his guns, twirling it slowly.

Raikov stood beside his desk, watching him with a look of absent contempt.

“One last thing,” Volgin added, glaring mildly at both of them. “Despite your…demonstrated interpersonal ambivalence, I expect you to act like soldiers. I want you to work in close cooperation to ensure that this imperative yields a functional facility, equal to or exceeding that of its previous incarnation. Is that clear to both of you?”

“Yes, Colonel,” said Ocelot, narrowing his eyes.

“Of course, sir,” replied Raikov.

Volgin nodded slowly, once. “Good.”

Ocelot caught Raikov looking at him, thought written deep in his grey gaze. He scowled and looked away, re-holstering his gun.

Volgin’s smile was like a fault line cracked deep into the terra of his features. “And now, Ivan,” he said. “I’ll be needing you.”

Raikov looked up, his mouth teased by bright, clinging slips of hair. “Now, sir?” he asked, calmly.

“Here and now,” Volgin murmured, caging the Major’s body against his desk.

Raikov tilted his head, coolly. “I think you had better ask, sir. And make it pretty.”

“Huh,” Volgin grunted, still smiling. “You’re upset about the scientist, aren’t you?”

Raikov shrugged slightly.

“Forgive me,” whispered Volgin throatily. “Forgive me, Vanya.”

“Of course I forgive you.” As he tilted his head back, Raikov’s ushanka fell unnoticed, onto the floor.

Ocelot’s brows jerked into incredulous chevrons, but Volgin made no move to dismiss him. “With your permission, sir, I have a patrol to lead,” he demanded, uneasily.

Volgin chuckled as he urged Raikov to turn over, easing his chest down across the desk with massive hands. “Take the night off, Ocelot. Questioning that scientist put me in…a generous mood.”

“Yes, Colonel,” he replied automatically. There it was again, that conflicted feeling. Inexplicable, intrusive, unpleasant, unwelcome. Uninvited.

He scowled.

As the door closed behind him, Ocelot reached for the safety of his guns.


	10. Chapter 10

_Late at night,  
When the world is dreaming  
Way past the stars  
That ignore our fate & all twinkle too late to save us -  
so we save ourselves._

(Paul Weller)

 

He had gone to the showers, stripped and braced his hands against the tile, letting the water wash over his head and neck in cauterizing streams.

Keep your hands on the wall, Ocelot, he thought. Hands on the wall. 

He let his eyes close, slowly breathing in and out, pressing his palms into the firm, unyielding ceramic. The intrusive images faded slowly into oblivion.

It cleared his head, gradually, easing the tension in his neck and shoulders. Outside the temperature had plummeted, and it was gratifying, somehow, that he was here, enveloped in a cloud of steam and heat, instead of patrolling the icy perimeter of the Grad with the Ocelot troop in tow. The snow had begun even before the sky had darkened. By now it was spilling from the heavens in full force, like feathers from a godly bed.

The Major pushed himself away from the wall reluctantly and wrenched the water off, running his hands back over his head, feeling his damp, pale hair resurrect in spikes and spurs. He felt newly minted, purified. Burned clean and scorched new. It was a steadier Adamska who emerged. He toweled himself dry, roughly, abruptly, and put on his clothes.

When he returned to his quarters, he took off his beret and hung it on the bedpost. He lay down, scowling at the blanched expanse of ceiling. There was really no need for lights in the dusk of early winter. The snow reflected the moon’s stolen light through the window, and illumed the room in strange gradients, like a nightmare day.

Ocelot didn’t like the obscurity of this netherworld. Nuance and ambiguity. Uncounted shades of grey.

Conflicted. Irreconcilable.

He tightened his stomach, rising effortlessly, and switched on all the lamps, so that they created tiny islands of glowing radiance in the silvery sea of half-light. That was better, he decided, crossing his arms. Pleasant.

There was a sound at the door, and he swung around, frowning. 

It wasn’t a knock; more of a tap, really--the lazy drumming of fingertips.

Crossing the room, he jerked it open and found Raikov standing there, to his mild surprise. “You,” he said.

“Major Ocelot.” Raikov glanced into the room, lifting his eyebrows. “Am I intruding?”

Ocelot stepped aside. “This is unexpected,” he said. “I thought you might be indisposed for a while.”

Raikov smiled apologetically. “I could have tapped you via Codec,” he admitted, as Ocelot closed the door.

“That’s not necessary.” Ocelot turned, so that only the slightest hint of the Major’s exquisite face was visible to him, a diamond-like glint in the periphery.

Raikov dropped into the chair by the window, hooking one leg over the arm as he did so. It was an innately graceful gesture, committed absently, and he reclined there, looking at Ocelot with unmilitaristic impunity.

“Have a nice evening?” Ocelot asked tightly.

“I missed you, Adamska,” announced Raikov, ignoring his bait. “That’s why I came to say hello. I wanted to see your face.”

“My face.” Ocelot nodded, feeling his lips draw into a smirk.

Raikov nodded solemnly. “Of course, your face. Your eyes. Your mouth. Even now, sneering at me like that, your mouth is beautiful.”

“Get over yourself.”

“It’s you I can’t seem to get over, solnyshko.” As always, Raikov seemed amused at his agitation. “But we needn’t speak of it. Are you upset, Major? You look rather...put out.”

“Is that supposed to be a cat joke?” snapped Ocelot, bristling.

Raikov’s eyebrows raised in mild surprise. “You know I don’t make jokes, Adamska.”

“Whatever you say.”

Raikov met his gaze for a moment longer, then smiled charmingly. “I brought a bottle of good vodka, the kind fit for officers. Since you were relieved of duty, I thought we might spend the evening together.”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

Raikov shrugged, clearly unconcerned. “Comrades keep company, Major.”

“I just don’t think Volgin would be especially pleased to know the nature of our …camaraderie.”

A slight smile tweaked Raikov’s lips. “Why, Adamska? Are you intending to give him a reason to be jealous?”

Ocelot flushed. "You know damn well I’m talking about Genesis.”

“Then you should have said ‘the genesis of our camaraderie’. It would have been funnier.”

“I thought you didn’t make jokes.”

Raikov shrugged. “I don’t,” he said enigmatically. “But you could.”

"You're my counterpart, not my colleague." 

"I'm both, in a way." 

"You don't think it's unwise for you and I to fraternize any more than strictly necessary?" 

Raikov threw back his head, laughing softly. Subsiding, he remained there, smiling up at the ceiling. “I think,” he said, reasonably, “that it is far more suspicious for us to avoid crossing paths too studiously, Adamska.” 

Ocelot frowned. Raikov had a point. Although he had always been careful to distance himself from his counterpart by making a tacit show of his disdain for the Major, contempt carried too far would only spell conspiracy to suspicious observers. Accordingly, he had confined himself to nuance, letting his dislike remain an obscure suggestion, evident only in subtle unspoken gestures, the subterranean semaphore of a narrowed eye and a curled lip. 

But the Motherland hailed to one truthful universal; namely, that there was no rift too broad to cross for a good stiff drink. It made perfect organic sense for him to drink with Raikov, his rank-mate and comrade, despite their petty animosity. It made less sense that he wouldn’t, especially considering the kind of rarified liquor that Raikov so carelessly brandished, well worth its weight in gold. 

Officers were a clear breed apart from the rank and file, after all, and as such, tended to fraternize amongst themselves. Despite the time he spent alongside his Ocelots, cheek and jowl in the mud and blood and underbrush, he’d never raise the wrist with them. There were lines that were best left uncrossed. 

“All right,” Ocelot allowed, at last. His tone was resolute, with a hint of challenge. “Let’s have a drink, then.” He gave Raikov the finger-guns, holding them a moment longer than necessary. 

“Bang bang,” intoned Raikov, smiling obscurely as he pushed back his cap. 


	11. Chapter 11

_The fountains gush wine  
The chimneys spurt flowers  
Where me and my friends pass the fleeting hours  
Well yes and no  
Where did they go?_

(Steve Kilbey)

 

“Comrade, I should be going.” He said it with a smile, making no effort to hide his regret.

It was getting harder to look at Ocelot, with the white liquor easing the distance between them, warming the edges of his mind.

Ocelot drank like a Russian, resolute and resilient, showing little damage. His gaze remained steady and calculating, but his eyes were brighter, sparked with a softly hedonic intensity. Raikov could see through that admirable self-possession, being a Russian himself, well aware of the slight flush that tinted the contours of that cruelly generous mouth and bespoke the brutal kiss of the vodka.

It had been surprisingly easy between them. Civil. Sociable. They had matched one another shot for shot, as the snow fell relentlessly outside, until the last glass slammed down, and the bottle rolled across the table. Nothing was said of intrigue or affiliation. This was not tradecraft. 

It went unspoken, but understood. This was strictly leisure.

Ivan knew Ocelot didn’t want to talk about Volgin any more than he did. Words seemed superfluous in any case, and all too apt to crumble like ashes in the drag of this atmosphere.

It was good, like this, with a bottle between them. Companionable.

Raikov could feel his thoughts slipping toward indecency.

 _Temperance,_ he told himself. In at least one arena. It wouldn’t be sporting to push his advantage so soon. 

He could feel the slow burn of the liquor gently suffusing him, just enough to suggest that if he lingered here, gazing at Ocelot, he might be persuaded not to care so much about the cherished art of seduction by inches.

Raikov rose to his feet reluctantly, putting on his cap. “Thank you for the hospitality, Major. You must let me return the favor.” He glanced briefly at the clock that hung above the door.

Ocelot followed his gaze upward. “Keeping your regular schedule, Major?” he asked, coolly.

Raikov smiled. “I’m predictable that way.” It was two AM, and he could use the distraction.

“Have fun baking in brimstone.”

Ivan laughed. “You won’t be joining me, then?”

“Had a shower earlier.”

Raikov inclined his head, touching his cap, and Ocelot gave him an exaggeratedly sharp nod, and a flick of his wrist. “You’re not half bad company, Raikov. I can see why you have C-class clearance.” A smirk, but good-natured.

"Adamska, Adamska. We both know that my security clearance has everything to do with the company I keep, not the company I give away.” Raikov paused in front of the door. He was tempted to reach out, as he had earlier that day in the dog yard, with this gentle silence hanging between them, and that inexplicable softening in the acuity of Ocelot’s gaze. He wondered if it would linger. If he could touch it. "Tomorrow, then?” he said, at last, quietly.

“Tomorrow,” Ocelot declared, lifting his jaw. “…Ivan.”

Raikov closed the door behind him, and started down the sterile hall, bemused. He smiled to himself, pulling his cap down more firmly over his glossy blond hair. He felt pleasurably warmed by the alcohol, at ease in his skin and beautifully melted into the fabric of the world. It was, he thought, the perfect state of inebriation; elation without incapacitation.

Certainly, he was not hindered anatomically. The hardening in his loins was undeniable and fierce, as if he’d repressed his natural impulses to the breaking point.

He rounded the corner, and pushed open the door of the officers’ locker room. The melodic hum of the furnace filled the still expanse, throbbing like a mother’s heart. He relished the warm, soothing wash of overhead lights and gentle white sound, an electric oasis in the desert of night.

Ivan set the thermostat and undressed, idly draping his clothes across the open locker door. He couldn’t bothered with propriety at the moment, and his uniform needed pressing in any case, creased as it was from the hours spent sitting across from Adamska with an ever-refreshing glass in his hand. Behaving.

Once he was naked he slipped inside the gracious heat of the sauna, closing the wooden door behind him with a soft noise, caring little whether it fully engaged. It was good enough to hold the heat, in any case, and good enough to stay shut, and truly, what did it matter if it conformed perfectly to the jamb?

It wasn’t radiation in here, after all.

Ocelot had cared, he remembered, with amusement. He had shoehorned it into obedience with relentless attention. 

Adamska, with his penetrating eyes of insolent blue.

He took the middle tier this time, as this visit was less for body-rejuvenating catharsis and more for simple relaxation. Raikov dipped a washcloth in cold water and folded it in thirds, laying it over his eyes. It was another trick he had learned in Sjuntio, a way to ease one’s breathing in the thick and scorching heat. The wet cloth served to cool the air around the mouth and nose, as well as calming the mind’s instinctive panic. It was sensory immersion, the reassuring weight of the cold, damp cloth pressing down on his eyelids and swathing him in warm oblivion, blotting out reality.

It had worked for centuries with horses in stable fires, after all. Men, he thought idly, were truly no more complex at the core. Raikov stretched out bodily along the length of the bench, flat on his back, his thoughts unbound in the blackness of nothing.

Inevitably, his thoughts returned to Adamska.

It was a delicate, beautiful balance that had been struck, and he had been reluctant to crush it under the weight of his compulsion. He had confined himself to his chair, to congenialities, no matter how lush and beckoning he found the curve of Ocelot’s petulant mouth.

Alone, he made no such promises.

His hand traced over his chest, lightly, brushing his nipples, and trailed downward, over the firm dunes of his stomach. He wasted little time with formalities, artful fingers seeking the familiar shape of his cock, stiff and ardent against the flat of his loins. They slid closed, wrapping slowly around its contours and drawing upward with a firm caress. Raikov exhaled softly, feeling sensation rise against his fingertips.

As he stroked himself, he relaxed into the firm surface of the wood and let himself drift. His mind wandered over the chain-link fence and into the place where he caged his desires. He breathed softly, taking the heavy air deep inside him, moving his hand in languid, gentle strokes. He was skillful, even with himself. Embers fanned and caught, blooming upward from his loins, stretching into mellow flames that drew upward to lick at his belly.

This, at the mere thought of Ocelot’s gorgeous, sullen face; his lean, ruthless form. His grip intensified, slipping firmly over his cock, feeling the hint of liquid pearl that coated it, silk and slick against his palm. The strangest things moved him. Why did he shudder like this at the sulking cross of his chevronned brows, the outraged set of his voluptuous mouth? Raikov thought of taking those lips, forcefully, if only to evoke that expression. He wondered if Ocelot would look the same, crushed among rough sheets, on the verge of climax.

Raikov tilted his head back, flexing against sensation, easing himself back into stasis, his hand deliberately slowing until it became almost mantric, his breath rhythmic and even, drawing back the throttle with conscious care. He kept the constant pattern with light and glancing touches, steeping in the heat and succulent tension that slowly mounted around his pleasurably aching cock.

When he heard the door open he didn’t even pause, didn’t move, not to gesture, not to shift. Certainly not to stop. He felt no discomfiture. Knowing who and what he was, if someone was brazen enough to join him, they deserved an eyeful.

There was a long silence. He felt a slight draft uppercut his body.

“Surprised?” Raikov said, without turning his head, or acknowledging the bystander in any physical way. “Feel free to stay. Just close the door.”

The door closed slowly, a soft, audible clack of wood against itself, and then shut completely, with a definitive noise. His company had not left. He could sense the presence of another man in the density of the atmosphere, sharing the heat that enveloped them.

Raikov felt his arousal increase slightly, but he continued indolently stroking his cock, listening to the deceptive silence. "It’s fine if you don’t talk,” he breathed. “In fact, I prefer it.”

He wasn’t an exhibitionist by nature, but he was jaded enough to appreciate an audience, especially an anonymous one. There was something inherently erotic about his restricted vision, and the suddenly audible breath of his silent observer.

“See no evil, speak no evil,” he intoned, smiling, hearing the bench below him creak gently. “Am I forgetting one?”

It was not what he expected, the firm touch alighting on his thigh.

Raikov shivered imperceptibly. He felt his breath catch as the hand eased upward, over his own, caressing it briefly before slipping beneath, usurping his grasp and stealing primacy from him. “Lending a comrade a hand, are you,” Raikov said softly. “That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”

Another hand was laid over his eyes, pressing the cloth briefly, as if sealing it with a hasty benediction, reinforcing its state. He laughed quietly. "Don’t worry, comrade. It’s better I don’t know.”

Dexterous fingers eased along the underside of his glans, evoking little bolts of indecent delight, before gripping him fully once more. The touch was sure and reverent, lingering in favored places, as if its owner fetishized the very essence of his primal identity. It was a hand that knew well how to worship an object.

Raikov’s lips parted, and he breathed in, feeling himself shifting, thighs easing to allow the contact. He slowly withdrew his own fingers, letting his arm rise over his head, giving himself over to the other. It was blissfully slow and exquisite, each movement made with toying care. With every motion another jagged piece of his desire fell into place, cantilevered and trembling, building an epiphany for him alone.

“Do you know me, comrade?” he whispered, smiling. “For I think you must.” Raikov had not anticipated this from a stranger, such an unfailing approach to his pleasure. 

The obscene caress continued, tactility without pause, with merciless leisure. The other hand rejoined the first, easing beneath, cupping his balls taut against his shaft. He was breathing more deeply now, a bittersweet thrumming resonant in his loins. He could assign anyone this hand; this anonymous, masculine breath in the false dark beyond his covered eyes. But Adamska owned his mind tonight, Adamska and his handsome brutality. His full, hard mouth and clever, deceptive hands.

Raikov felt a longing he could not define, one that he should not have felt in such a base, perfunctory transaction.

He shuddered as the strong hand relentlessly slid over him, working his length. “Kiss me, comrade,” he demanded, certain it was the vodka he was channeling.

When could one humor his slightly drunken whims if not in a place and time such as this? An insignificant moment, if ever there was one, to be forgotten and discarded like a broken teacup--once pretty, but irretrievable.

“What are you waiting for, an invitation from God?” Raikov reached forward, insouciantly, but his hand was caught midway, deflected from its goal. “All right, comrade. Just keep doing that, then.”

Unresisting, he felt his hand being eased down, to lie at his side once more. The friction on his cock resumed, the fist wrapped more tightly now, deliberate and excruciating. Raikov lay rapt, breathing, keenly aware of the tangible proximity of the other’s body. Now his mouth was close- Raikov sensed, more than felt, his presence- hovering there, his shallow respiration faintly sounded in the weight of the air.

The lips that grazed his were deceptively soft, surprisingly tactile, and gone far too soon.

His instinct was to reach, to reclaim, and yet when he moved to pursue, his lips met with a warning index finger. Raikov laughed softly, drawing it brazenly into his mouth, which this comrade allowed.

Raikov felt the finger leave his lips and trace over his torso, down past the hollow of his hip, evoking a quiet groan. Along the inside of his thigh, following the carnal line, invisible, indelible--sliding underneath the sphere of his testes to touch him, tip to tail, pressing into the hypersensitive flesh of his entrance. 

He shifted, lifting his hips, welcoming the intrusion. The hand that was jacking him kept its unflagging rhythm, and he felt slow turmoil building in his loins, as that finger was eased and angled inside him. It entered him smoothly and sudden, pushed with mercenary intent, striking incisively upward, seeking and finding his core. Raikov’s fingers curled absently, holding the edge of the bench.

It was so easy. The smooth slip and grasp of palm against cock. The hand that worked against his body, fingers pushing slowly up and inside him, rubbing exquisite lines into the tenderness there.

A curve, like beckoning, and he came.

Heat pressed in on him from all sides, cradling his body, his lips parting in exquisite silence. He breathed out, facing the sensation headlong, letting it take him, abdicating all resistance. Ivan felt himself relax into the release, felt the relative coolness of his own essence issuing onto his skin. Heat and silence, but for the sounds of ragged breath, the other’s and his own. 

The hands withdrew at once, swiftly, leaving him lithe and satisfied. His admirer was clearly keen on his status incognito, and Raikov wasn’t inclined to complain. “I’ll count to five hundred, comrade,” he murmured, languidly rolling his shoulders. “You’ve got time. I’m not planning on moving for awhile.”

The door closed lightly, leaving him in the swelter.

Raikov sat up slowly, uncovering his eyes, giving the damp washcloth a cursory pass over his stomach. A few minutes passed; enough time to collect his thoughts somewhat, although he was still slightly intoxicated and ruefully aware of it. He laughed quietly at himself.

When he stepped out into the locker room, it was empty, with no trace of his mysterious acquaintance. Not that he’d expected anything different. He made his way back to his quarters and fell into bed, drowsy and sated.

Sleeping alone always felt fascinating and decadent to Ivan Raikov. The beautiful rarely slept alone, and always by choice, though the choice itself was rarely offered. That night found his thoughts straying in amusing directions, like kittens on a string. 

He curved his fingers into the down of his feather tick and contemplated the warmth of arms; not enclosing him, but entwining him. He remembered the peculiar luxury of kissing someone who shared your height.

He had let himself think of it, with a shot glass in his hand, and the burn of liquor on his tongue. He had let his eyes drift over the softly bristled contours of that sharply cropped blond hair, and wondered what it would feel like under his hand, pricking his lips.

As he drifted off to sleep, he found that he thought of Adamska, and it intrigued him that the Major had captured his mind in such a rare and visceral way.


	12. Chapter 12

_He's never early, he's always late  
First thing you learn is that you always gotta wait  
I'm waiting for my man _

(Lou Reed)

 

“Good morning, comrade.”

Ocelot looked up as Raikov slid into the seat across from him, setting his tray down on the table.

For some reason, he hadn’t noticed the Major’s arrival in the mess hall, although Raikov’s progress in any direction generally left a chirping chorus of ‘yes sirs’ and heel clicks scattered like rose petals in his wake.

Raikov’s eyes were a clear and lucid grey, and his pale hair brushed his shoulderboards coyly beneath his uniform cap. There was a compelling vitality about him, Ocelot noticed, something elusive. He looked rested, refreshed.

Ocelot smirked. A proper Russian military breakfast begins at seven,” he said, by way of a greeting.

“One can’t always live by tradition,” Raikov replied, with a little smile. He unfolded a small cellophane ration packet of loose-leaf tea and prepared a cup, setting it aside to steep.

Ocelot had already eaten most of his breakfast, but he lingered leisurely over his own tea, watching Raikov with unstudied curiosity. “You seem favorable this morning.”

“Do I?” Raikov lifted a pleasant eyebrow, taking a bite of dark bread.

“Have a good night?”

Raikov laughed quietly. “I slept well. Very well. How about you, Adamska?”

Ocelot slowly sat back in his chair, leveling his gaze to meet Raikov’s. “Can’t complain. A good night’s dreamless sleep, and a solid breakfast are all a man requires.”

"Really. Is that all?”

“That, and a cup of hot tea.” He took a sip.

Ocelot knew he was being deliberately vague, with the intent of provoking Raikov. But the Major seemed unperturbed, offering only a pleasant nod, and none of his customary suggestive insistence.

“Hot meals must be a nice change from all the time you spend in the field,” remarked Raikov, who was devouring his own with considerable appetite.

Ocelot was used to rations, it was true. Tinned fish and beef, packets of hard candy and powdered milk. Tea and tobacco in unmarked paper pouches, both large-leafed and dark, indistinguishable at a casual glance. Biscuits and preserves, bouillon cubes to make nettle soup and lard to fry everything else. Chocolate, for morale.

It was unremarkable at best, wretched at worst, though he seldom even considered it anymore. Eating was necessary, and that was all. Luxury and enjoyment were scarce, yes, but it hardly mattered, since there was no time to think of those things in the field.

At a base, there were more resources. Officers ate well at Groznyj Grad--two hot meals a day, with only supper comprised of prepackaged goods. Breakfast was considered the most important, and they were fed accordingly. The kitchens dished out eggs and sausage and hot corn porridge with butter and dark, dense bread and butter, along with a healthy portion of tea.

“It’s not bad,” he admitted.

Raikov laughed, stirring jam and cream into his cup. “Is that all? Then your taste buds are dead, Adamska, from eating gamey wild meat and freeze-dried fish.”

Ocelot narrowed his eyes. “Let’s hope all this good food hasn’t spoiled yours, Major. We may be eating rations at Graniny-Gorki, depending on how we find their facilities, and how well supplies make it down from the Grad.”

When he least expected it, there it was- that sly, unmistakable smile. “I don’t mind. I’m sure I’ll find something else to my taste.”

Ocelot felt his eyebrows slant downward.

“Do that again,” murmured Raikov, leaning forward.

Ocelot scowled. “Why?”

“Because I like it.”

The sound of Volgin’s boots preceded the shadow that fell over them. Ocelot shot Raikov a quick and dirty look that was met with an enigmatic smile, as the Major eased his elbows off the table and sat back in his chair.

The Colonel loomed over them, cannon-chested and foreboding, immaculately lashed into his greatcoat and gloves. “Well, well. If it isn’t my two senior commanders. Having a nice breakfast together in the officers’ mess, are we? How civilized.”

Raikov gave an intentionally forced smile. “We do what we must, sir.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Major.”

Ocelot smirked quietly, toying with his spoon.

“How’s your scientist, Ivan?” asked the Colonel, cracking a smile.

“I’d hardly call him that, sir.”

“No?” uttered Volgin, noncommittal.

Raikov yawned disaffectedly. It’s your project, Zhenya. I work with the resources you give me.” A pause, then Raikov suddenly looked up, his expression appalled, with a touch of bewilderment.

Perfect timing, thought Ocelot cynically.

“My apologies, Colonel, for the informality. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Volgin’s jaw broke and reset itself into a dark, amused smile. “I think I do,” he said, wolfishly.

Raikov’s gaze slowly rose to meet the Colonel’s. "You may be right, sir.”

Ocelot rolled his eyes. “Should I just clear the table off for you?”

Volgin laughed out loud. “Jealous, eh Ocelot? Don’t worry. Major Raikov’s time will be all yours at Graniny-Gorki.”

Ocelot scowled. “I think you misunderstand me.”

“Huh,” said Volgin, with obvious indifference. “I’m just playing with you, Major. I know how much joy you two give each other.”

“You have no idea, sir,” Ocelot muttered, letting the gloved tips of his fingers trace the stock of his gun beneath the sight line of the table, before flipping it deftly out of its holster and into his covetous fingers.

“At least as much joy as you gave Dolukhanov,” Raikov intoned dryly. “Except without the sweet release of death.”

“I can arrange that, too,” retorted Ocelot, panning his arm theatrically, the gun revolving into line with Raikov’s face.

Volgin glowered tolerantly. “Kill each other on your own time. Otherwise, save it for the enemy, boys.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Dolukhanov,” grunted Volgin. “Was that his name? So he’s dead.”

“He didn’t look good after your session, sir,” Raikov replied. “But I haven’t followed up on him.”

“I did.” Ocelot’s voice was arch, unconcerned, as he pulled his pistol back and spun it carelessly. “In fact, I went down to the prison infirmary just this morning.”

Volgin’s eyebrows rose appreciatively. “Well?”

“The scientist is brain dead,” Ocelot informed them, perfunctorily. “A vegetable.”

Raikov set his tea down. “Good thing I already reassigned his workstation.”

Ocelot gave him an affirmative smirk and a cock of his wrist. “You like writing people off, don’t you Raikov?”

“He’s no loss,” Volgin grunted. “Although I must say I’m surprised. Huh. Feeble, those Armenians. I hardly even hit him.”

“You could have used him to fill piroshki, sir,” drawled Raikov. “That’s how pulverized he was.”

Volgin chuckled grimly. “You have such a vivid way of speaking, Ivan. I enjoy it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The Colonel looked them both over, nodding. “All right. Carry on, but keep it clean.” Volgin’s smile was ominous. “Happy, boys. Happy.”

His hand pressed down on Raikov’s shoulder as he departed, and Ocelot could feel the significance of the gesture, despite its brevity.

Silence for a moment, as Ocelot watched the retreat of the Colonel’s hulking back, the flawless, upright posture and forging stride that carried him through the world, an inexorable juggernaut. He set his lip. “Something is up with him.”

Raikov nodded, but didn’t seem overly alarmed. “He’ll tell me when he’s ready. He always does.”

“When he does-” Ocelot began.

“You’ll be the first to know,” interjected Raikov smoothly, sliding his hand over Ocelot’s.

It took him a moment to realize what had happened. Raikov’s face remained unassuming and sincere, betraying nothing about his actions. Ocelot frowned, unwilling to look down. He could feel his reaction to the Major’s touch, the heat of his palm, despite his covered hand. His red marksman’s gloves were fine-fitted kid leather, responsive to the slightest press of stock or trigger.

“What’s wrong?” asked Raikov, coolly.

Ocelot smirked. “Nothing at all.”

Their gaze met and locked. Ocelot felt the weight of Raikov’s stare and returned it back to him, meeting his amusement with insolent defiance. His captive hand felt warm and strange beneath the light prison of the Major’s fingers.

After a moment, Raikov laughed softly, and withdrew his hand. Ocelot felt a tremor chase through him at the motion, but gave no evidence. He remained steadfast, watching Raikov’s retreat with the same calculated disaffection as he had Volgin’s.

Raikov paused. “Do you know, Adamska, that I realized something this morning.”

“Did you.”

Raikov nodded slowly. “Something that didn’t occur to me last night, when I was…slightly less than perceptive.”

Ocelot sneered. “Tipsy, you mean?”

“Slightly pink,” allowed Raikov, benignly. “Not drunk.”

“Whatever you want to call it.”

Raikov smiled obscurely. “No matter. I was sober enough when I woke up, solnyshko.”

“Sober enough for what?” Ocelot scoffed, tossing his head back.

“Someone was with me in the sauna last night.”

Ocelot’s lip curled. “And you’ve only just now realized this?”

A leisurely shake of Raikov’s blond head. “No, of course not. But it didn’t occur to me to wonder who it was.”

Ocelot narrowed his eyes, but said nothing.

“This morning I realized it must have been Yevgeny.”

“You mean Volgin?” muttered Ocelot.

“Yes. Sorry.” Raikov smiled, apologetic. “Force of habit.”

Ocelot met his gaze. “I thought you said he steered clear of the showers,” he said deliberately.

“That’s true. I did say that.” Raikov’s eyes were fixed on his own. “In that case, I suppose it might have been anyone.”

“You said yourself that no one would dare to come near you.”

Raikov tilted his head. His gaze was enigmatic. “So I did.”

There was a quiet, as Ocelot drained the last of his morning tea, aware that Raikov was studying him from every angle. He rose from his chair, pulling his beret down sharply. “If you’ll excuse me, I have ranks to inspect, Major.”

Raikov touched his cap, leaning back. “Of course,” he murmured. “ _Schastliva_.”

His face was the epitome of nonchalance, but Ocelot knew better. “I’ll expect contact later,” he said, quietly. “Unless that’s not possible-?”

Raikov lifted an eyebrow. “I’m inclined to think anything is possible, Adamska.”

Ocelot gave him a slight nod and made to leave. He paused on his way, as something occurred to him.

“Ivan,” he said, turning.

Raikov looked up.

Ocelot smiled coolly and cocked a single finger gun. “Bang,” he said.


	13. Chapter 13

_Working doesn't seem to be the perfect thing for me  
So I continue to play  
And if I'm so bad why don't they take me away?_

(Steve Marriott)

 

It was make-work. Not to put to fine a point on it.

To take arms against a sea of forms had been his intent--and by opposing, end them; or at least divert the obsessive machinations of his mind.

Raikov let his fingers drift across the paper, signing his name for the hundredth time that hour in swift and relentless script. If he was condemned to repeat himself, at least his was a good name to write. It stretched pleasingly across the mimeographed line at the bottom of each page, the sweeping capital ciphers characteristic of his slanted hand.

His handwriting had always been praiseworthy.

The stack of requisitions that blighted his desk blotter had been left there by the Kapral, amounting to a precarious mountain of pale green cardstock with answers painstakingly typed into the unaccommodating spaces of the form.

In truth, Raikov rarely signed his own papers. He signed Volgin’s far more often, if the Colonel couldn’t be bothered, which was more often than not. In pedestrian matters like these, however, it hardly seemed worth the trouble. Usually he would leave it to the Kapral to forge his signature, the blatnoy bastard being gifted at that kind of thing, but today he’d taken up his pen with a singular purpose in mind- to avoid thinking.

The task at hand was well suited to his purposes. He concentrated on forming every letter, making each signature a singular creation, fluid and flawless. The Kapral had already stamped them with the red star, which was not strictly acceptable to protocol, but considering he usually falsified them as well, hardly a point of ethical contention.

Raikov slipped his cap off, and ran his fingers slowly through his hair, gazing out the window. From his office he could see nothing of the Grad, which was ideal. It was a vista on a pristine sky and the crags and rocks beyond.

The day had been snowy and dark. No longer content to demurely kiss the earth by night, the weather had boldly pushed into the arms of the waking hours. The sky was obscured; swathed in icy fleece. It teemed with white stars like a celestial aquarium, encompassed by the tarnished dome of a graphite heaven. The slow, hypnotic drifts led him gradually toward contemplation, and he almost relented, but it wasn’t something he was ready to wrap his mind around quite yet.

The quasi-revelations of breakfast, Adamska, and all that they entailed, could wait.

He glanced at the desk clock and realized it was well past four. A few more signatures, perhaps. He bent his head to the task, resetting his cap and focusing on the soothing oblivion of flourish and stroke, pen looping and jagging across open space, disdaining line in his quest for form. 

It channeled his attention so thoroughly that he almost didn’t hear Volgin enter the room.

Almost.

As always, the distinctive sonic footprint revealed him. Deliberate swagger, stance wide and steady. He moved less like a soldier than a prizefighter. “Good afternoon, Major. How’s life in the East Wing?”

Ivan didn’t look up immediately. “Life is largely uninspiring, sir, as you’ve appropriated the majority of the scientists and shipped them off to Graniny-Gorki. I presume.”

“You’ll see them soon enough,” was Volgin’s indulgent reply. He paused, standing in state like an immovable glacier. “I wanted to be sure we had resources there.”

Raikov nodded, preoccupied. “But now we have none here at Groznyj Grad.”

“I’ll get you more scientists, Ivan,” Volgin chuckled, with a doting air, as if they came in boxes like contraband chocolates, and could be procured with no more trouble, through the services of a reliable tolkach.

The Colonel leaned in, half sitting on the edge of his desk. Raikov could just catch the deeper notes of his cologne in the comfortable heat of the air. It mingled, infused with Volgin’s particular chemistry and the warm tint of wool and leather.

“Now Vanya,” he said. “What’s troubling you? Apart from scientists and paperwork?”

“Just introspective. I have a slight headache. Must be the low pressure front.”

Volgin snorted. “Low pressure front,” he uttered, unimpressed. “You’re not taking ill, are you?” His features grew brooding as he drew off his left glove, reaching out and pressing the back of his hand against Raikov’s forehead. Dormant and uncharged, Volgin’s skin felt almost normal, but the resonance that thrummed quietly in his blood was an indelible reminder of his affliction. 

His hand was heavy and warm, a reassuring weight. Ivan smiled in spite of his distraction. “Zhenya,” he murmured. “You’re paranoid. I’m fine.”

Volgin reluctantly withdrew his arm. “Paranoid,” he echoed derisively. “Huh. That’s a good trait to cultivate around here, Major.”

Raikov eyed him lazily. “Now why should I do that, when I have you?” He paused, letting a coy look drift onto his face as he tapped his fountain pen against the desk. “I do have you, don’t I?”

The Colonel’s laugh was low and pleased, a subterranean rumbling that Raikov felt in the marrow of his bones. "That you do, Vanya.”

He rose, turning to lean over Raikov’s desk, spanning it easily with his arms. “And you’ll have me many times before you leave. I promise you that much.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it, sir.”

Volgin looked him over, frowning. “Odd to see you sitting at a desk, Major Raikov. Don’t make it a habit.”

Ivan smiled, amused. The implication was clear. Volgin preferred to have him strolling the grounds like an ornamental peacock, not contributing to the bureaucratic efficiency of Groznyj Grad. It wasn’t a right Raikov was inclined to fight for, the privilege of desk duty. He was no more enchanted than Volgin with the idea of petty administration. His true skills lay in the art of diplomacy. Or thereabout. “Not a problem, sir. In fact, I think I’ll take a walk right now.”

Outside, yes. In the fresh ice and white flock. To breathe under the arched canopy of the sky, the rarified air; a remedy. It would either revitalize his mind or asphyxiate it. Either case would be a more agreeable state.

Volgin looked pleased. “Excellent. You do that, Major. I’ll be taking a conference call until seven...so I’ll expect you in my quarters at 8:00.”

“Done and done,” Raikov promised, as he quit the self-imposed prison of his chair.

Volgin grunted appreciatively, eyes drifting over him. “Nobody wears the uniform like you, Ivan. It hurts my eyes to look at such perfection.”

Raikov paused before Volgin. “Then tonight you can ruin it.” He touched a finger to the scar that marked the corner of the Colonel’s mouth, boldly tracing down the riven line to the edge of his jaw.

“Huh,” rumbled Volgin, granite features forming into a predatory grin. “You’d better go, Major.”

Raikov tossed his hair back from his eyes, swapping his visor cap for an ushanka. “Later,” he said.

“Later,” leered Volgin. “Believe me.”

Now that the idea had caught the eye of his mind, Raikov wasted little time.

He buttoned his winter greatcoat over his uniform, fastening his holster on his way out of the War Room. It was decidedly too warm in the East Wing for winter everyday dress, but he knew that outside the mercury had plummeted into vehement cold. As he approached the entryway, the automatic door retracted with an efficient hiss. After the stifling heat of the building, the formidable chill that assaulted him was actually pleasurable.

Darkness came early in the bleak midwinter, and once he stepped beyond the halo of the lighted doors it was a twilight world. He walked briskly across the yard- not so much because he was cold, but because the snapping bright chill seemed to call for it. Mechanics that echoed their environs. It was poetic, or prosaic- depending on how much significance you chose to assign it.

The guards that stood sentinel at the edges of the supply yard were bundled and bound as he was, in strident grey, AK-47s resting companionably on broad-coated shoulders. They had the flaps of their ushankas pulled down to shield their ears from the biting chill. They hastily disengaged their hands from the deep warmth of their pockets to salute him.

“Major,” one acknowledged. 

He nodded to them as he passed.

The smoke of their cigarettes was blue and diffuse in the sodium light. Fixed as the stars- their posts, their presence. Static and enduring like the fortress itself. When they were dead, Ivan wondered, would they still return to guard that insignificant piece of earth? Would soldiers walk the halls?

Would he?

This place that Raikov knew so intimately was elemental in its simplicity. Groznyj Grad lay in a cradle of inhospitable rock, flanked by sheer cliffs and bald mountains. Its savage beauty was undeniable, but not versatile. Just beyond the main gate he found a changed world, exactly as he’d hoped, though he didn’t realize how much he’d wanted it until he actually stood in its midst.

Once barren terrain, swathed softly in white obscurity. Another folk tale; panoramic, this time, with snow-sugared peaks and vast, rolling steppes that surrounded the Terrible City. Cliffside caves of immutable rock had grown transient stalactites, icicles crowning their mouths like fantastic teeth. Like the tundra, like the taiga of his home.

Meandering paths to traverse among the blanketed boulders. Mazes to lose yourself in.

Raikov walked, feeling his inexplicable unease slip away from him with the swirling drifts, to be buried, perhaps, and not thaw until spring crept over them again. He genuinely hoped so. As he walked, his mind gained clarity. Perspective returned to him with the chill wind, and he welcomed its cool embrace, the composure it brought him.

He wasn’t given to unhealthy rumination, or discomfiture. He wore his charm about him like a mantle, never lacking for words, never caught undone. The motivations of man were always known to him, as indigenous and instinctive to his bones as his own physical beauty. It was partly an art, it was partly a science. It simply was, and had always been. A gift? His mother had thought so.

So had the Patriots.

Ivan never questioned his intuition, or how the game would play out once he set it in motion. He could read intentions like neon in the dark anonymity of another’s eyes. It had been so long since he’d felt out of his element that he’d almost forgotten the lingering barb of being taken by surprise. Disconcerted.

And all because Major Ocelot did as he pleased.

Raikov laughed softly. He had to admit that, little as he liked being outdone, he couldn’t argue with Ocelot’s choice of a pre-emptive strike.

There were worse ways to be surprised.


	14. Chapter 14

_He said to me: ‘I’m a true friend!’  
and touched the buttons on my chest.  
How unlike an embrace  
the closeness of his caress.  
Thus, you stroke birds or cats, yes,  
thus you view shapely performers…  
in his calm eyes only laughter,  
beneath pale-gold eyelashes._

(A. Akmatova)

 

“Pizdets,” muttered Ocelot, ungraciously shaking the snowflakes from his beret. Tundra had never been his favorite terrain, not in simulation, and certainly not in practice. The ubiquitous whiteness of snow tended to be at irreconcilable odds with crimson and black, putting a severe crimp in the valuable element of surprise.

Not that he wanted to hide. He refused to pander to his environment. The actor never bowed to the backdrop, after all.

Ocelot crept forward, scanning the horizon, a frown of concentration settling between his brows. A figure was coming toward him through the veil of drifting snow, walking steadily and without haste, hands in his pockets, the shape of his uniform coat and hat identifying him as a non-field soldier.

Raikov. Even if he hadn’t recognized that self-satisfied swagger, there would have been no doubt. He’d seen him leave the Grad, after all.

Ocelot had been following his footprints, which were hardly discreet, but catching him on the return was just as good, if not better. It saved him having to tramp through more of the white misery. He waited, crossing his arms and scowling at the falling snow.

Raikov noticed him, giving a wordless tip of his chin as he approached. A subtle pink flush tinted his lips and the high planes of his cheeks.

He looked Ocelot over, regarding him with barely concealed amusement. “Most animals that dwell in Mother Russia have evolved to blend with her snows. The fox, the hare, the weasel...”

“An Ocelot doesn’t change his stripes.”

“Perhaps, but a cat in gloves catches no mice, as they say.” He paused, looking down. “Particularly a cat in gloves like those.”

“Swapping proverbs, are we?”

Raikov shrugged his grey-coated shoulders pleasantly. “Merely keeping conversation, comrade major.”

“Where were you headed, Ivan? Not to see me, obviously.”

A quizzical look from Raikov, perfectly executed, thought Ocelot. “Did we have a date, ADAM?’

Ocelot scowled, digging his boot heel disdainfully into the powdery white at their feet. “No date, EVA. But at breakfast you did agree to meet up later, time permitting. And it looks like your time is pretty free, Raikov.”

The other laughed slightly, easing straying strands of his hair from his clear grey eyes with a single finger. It was a gracefully absent gesture. “Relax. I had every intention of meeting you. Not that I have anything of interest to impart."

“That’s not the point,” said Ocelot. “And I’m perfectly at ease, Raikov.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“You said it yourself. We need to keep in touch.”

Raikov lifted his eyes significantly. "So I did, although I admit I wasn’t anticipating such a literal interpretation on your part.”

Ocelot scowled, reluctant to reply to what was obviously a baited line, a snare to gain his admission. But then he reconsidered his reticence. It was stupid to pretend that he hadn’t put his hands on Raikov at this juncture. He’d had his fun, feigning vagaries. Admit it. Why not. His lips curved into an insinuating smile. “What’s the matter, Raikov? Did I rub you the wrong way?”

“Not at all,” he answered, seriously. “But I confess, your actions didn’t conform to what I expected.”

“I make a point of exceeding expectations, Major.”

“Yes,” Raikov intoned slowly, tilting his head. “I imagine you do.”

Ocelot felt a shiver bolt through him, fierce and fleeting. He tightened his thoughts at once, tamping them down to the facts at hand. It wasn’t a good idea to think about the kinds of things someone like Major Ivan Raikov might imagine.

“But you owe me something, in spite of that, Adamska.”

“I owe?” demanded Ocelot, incredulous.

“It puts me in mind of another proverb. 'Do not make me kiss, and you will not make me sin’. Was that it, Adamska?”

“I gave you what you asked for."

“That wasn’t a kiss. Not like I know them.”

“My mouth touched yours.”

“Touched, yes,” the Major agreed, peeling off his glove. “And a touch can be nice.” Ocelot’s breath caught quietly as Raikov’s bare palm sought his face. The memory of that unspoken moment in the kennel yard was thrust into his mind; accusatory truth, like a bolt from the blue. The cold, gilded afternoon and the high, distant sun. The riffle that shook his ocean. Somehow it seemed like a pale premonition of now, the heat of contact against his chilled skin, drawing his heart into his throat, evoking a want that he could not name.

Raikov stood before him, flawless, holding his captive gaze. Snowflakes had settled gently, dusting his shoulders and lapel, frosting the grey wool fleece of his hat. They touched down on his face, slowly vanquished by the salted warmth of skin. They lit on his lips and dissolved into nothing, absorbed by eternity. They glinted demurely, like tiny stars caught in his hair. A baby universe.

Ocelot said nothing, allowing Raikov to feel him, boldly running his hand over his jaw and down his neck. The Major’s touch was effortlessly arousing, light but firm, and entirely aware of its intended response. “Your lips look cruel, don’t they?” Ivan remarked in a low voice, touching them with artfully tapered fingers, unmarred by the pistol-won calluses of a field commander. “I confess I always thought so. And yet I find they are gracious, almost reverent, to visitors. Shall I visit them with my own?”

“Don’t ask me questions like that." He felt Raikov’s deceptively soft intent, merciless as nuclear winter.

“It’s rhetorical, in any case. I’m going to kiss you.”

“Like hell you will.” 

He drew his Makarov and pointed, angling the barrel casually toward Raikov, who laughed. “Why not?” he asked, pleasantly. “You’d enjoy it.”

“You’re a charm agent. And I'm not stupid."

“I’m your co-operative, Adamska.” Raikov’s smile was faint, bemused. “You’re not the target.”

“Everyone is a target to you, EVA.”

Raikov paused. “I could say the same for you. Literally.”

There was a silence, and it was very complete. No sound came from the falling snow. The sky was a field of white. Ocelot could barely see the lights of Groznyj, faint halos in the amorphous mist. They may as well have been in Siberia.

Raikov moved forward, slowly, and Ocelot’s eyes narrowed, trying to gauge his intentions. He seemed sensually untroubled by the gun leveled in his general direction, his eyes locked to Ocelot’s. His pale grey gaze was unsettlingly soft, but knowing. He looked…like a man aroused.

Like a man about to disregard a Makarov.

Ocelot scowled. His hand tightened on the grip as Raikov drew closer, grabbed his wrist, lifted it along with the gun. Pressed it right between his eyes, closed them. Guided it slowly downward, over his nose. And kissed its muzzle.

Stunned, Ocelot felt his incredulous lips part, as his brows drew together in consternation. Raikov’s eyes rose to meet his own, as his lips snagged softly on the metal. Ocelot shuddered. He found himself watching, mesmerized, as Raikov drew the barrel into his mouth, slowly easing his lips back along the length of the metal.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, his voice sounding harsher than he expected, more breathless.

“Mouths exceed the grasp of fingers,” Raikov murmured. “It’s reciprocity.”

“What the hell does that mean?” He felt his blood seething, rushing downward, to creep and boil in his loins. Indignant at his body’s response, he glared, his gaze hardening along with his cock. Still, he made no move to reclaim his pistol from the Major’s obscene attentions.

“You took the first initiative,” Raikov said. “You engaged me. Now you deny me. With words that your actions contradict.”

“I didn’t ask for this,” Ocelot snarled. “Just because I jerked you off while I was drunk…”

Raikov pulled back, looking straight into his eyes across the sightline of the weapon. "Hypocrites kick with their hind legs, while licking with their tongues.”

“I’m not the one swallowing your gun."

“And I’m not kicking.” Raikov let the muzzle rub over his cheek and jaw, his eyes fixed on Ocelot, mouth parted as if he found the sensation rapturous beyond what words could reliably describe. “And this isn’t a gun.”

Ocelot’s hand tightened in aggravation, his knuckles bloodlessly white, but for the cold, or the force of his grasp, or something else entirely; he couldn’t discern. “I assure you it is, Major. Do I need to pull the trigger?”

“This isn’t a gun,” said Raikov, softly, easing his hand over Ocelot's, reinforcing his grip. “It’s an extension of you.”

Ocelot stared. His throat had gone dry, despite the cool precipitation of the air. He’d been breathing through his mouth. “You’re speaking nonsense.”

Ivan raised an eyebrow, giving the tip of the muzzle a final, insolent kiss before withdrawing his affections. “Do you really need me to tell you the significance of your own personal icons?”

“Maybe I do.”

“You refuse my lips, but eagerly thrust your precious pistol in my face, when your fist would have sufficed.” A quiet laugh. “Let’s not practice self-deception about what you want me to do with your weapon.” Raikov’s gaze was dispassionate, unruffled. He regarded Ocelot with infinite patience, as if waiting for him to come to his senses.

Ocelot lowered the gun. His breath shook inside him, and he could feel the heat of his own eyes, blazing with ice and outrage.

“If I kissed you now, you’d taste your own piece,” intoned Raikov, into the space between them.

Ocelot narrowed his eyes, not knowing what else to do. It wasn’t what he wanted, any of it. Not the coursing blood that tightened his loins, not the quickening response of his traitorous cock. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want this, like this.

He didn’t want to want this.

Ocelot was aware of many things in that moment, many more than he ever wanted to consider.

The unforgiving beauty of their surroundings, the white desolation spanning miles. The utter solitude that swirled all around like the snow, that couldn’t touch them, for they were in each other’s company.

Raikov, in front of him, framed against the blanching white, his almond-shaped eyes like chips of ice. He looked contented, as if he belonged to the scenery, like a heartless, vital Cossack, or a forbidden icon- the contraband picture of a beatified saint after the fact of his martyring, composed and disheveled all at once.

The fact that the silence had again lost its tension, without his consent, growing companionable in the absence of his attention, in spite of his indignation.

Ocelot shifted his stance, re-holstering his gun. “I should have known it would take more to unsettle Thunderbolt’s lover,” he muttered resentfully. “You’ve seen worse, haven’t you?”

Raikov shrugged. “Of all people, comrade Adamska, I trust you with a gun.”

Ocelot smirked. He shouldn’t have been flattered by that, but some part of him clearly was.

There was a stretch of time without speech, another of those ridiculously benevolent silences. Ocelot would have let it persist, but something was nagging him, tearing at the edges of his mind. Unformed, until he voiced it. "Raikov. Why do you want it, anyway?”

“The kiss?” Raikov said nothing for a moment; only watched the neverending progress of the snow. Then he turned. He met Ocelot’s restive gaze with solemnly shining eyes, as if he were imparting the greatest secret ever in keeping. "An ox is taken by the horns,” he said, “and the man by the tongue.”

Ocelot shivered. “I’ve had enough of fucking proverbs for one day.”

“Cold?” solicited Raikov with polite concern. Utterly genuine in every way, thought Ocelot, amazed. As if he hadn’t just been inches from Ocelot’s face, brazenly deep-throating his firearm.

“It’s so cold I’m stiff.” Ocelot used the crude field phrase he’d become accustomed to, before considering the unfortunate ramifications.

He cast an anticipatory glare at Raikov, but the Major only smiled. “I don’t make jokes, remember? And if I did, I wouldn’t go for anything so easy.”

“Really?” muttered Ocelot. “I would think easy is your currency.” He felt sorry for saying it after he did, but he pushed aside his reaction. It was Raikov who'd pushed him, after all; flaunting his honeytrap tradecraft.

“I never go for anything easy, Adamska. Yourself included.” Raikov saluted him, suddenly all decorum, the gesture crisp and detached. “I’m heading back to the Grad,” he said, before Ocelot could form a reply. “Hang back,” he added, shortly. As if it needed to be said.

Ocelot frowned, turning. “Where are you running off to, Ivan Raidenovich?”

It wasn’t an apology, not exactly, but invoking the patronymic was something unto itself. It was an address reserved for one’s more familiar friends, and held unmistakable connotations of affection and intimacy. Whether it meant anything to Raikov, he couldn’t fail to understand the symbolic intent of the overture.

“Running?” Raikov said. “Hardly.” 

His expression thawed beautifully as he spoke the words, and Ocelot was relieved somehow. It was never good policy to upset one’s co-operative. “Some comrade you are,” he groused. “Leaving me to cool my heels in this blizzard while you saunter off to your light blue pursuits.”

“You remind me of Bubnoff, who nibbled the Devil’s tail,” said Raikov. “All to visit him in Hell.”

“I remember that story,” said Ocelot. “The Devil invited him to dinner, as I recall.”

“He did, absolutely. The Devil is ever a gracious man. Even as he ate Bubnoff’s heart raw.”

“Then we know what happens to those who share the devil’s table. What about those who share the devil’s bed?”

“My heart is far too frozen to be palatable,” said Raikov, touching the brim of his cap with light fingers. “So I think I’m safe, Adamska.”

Ocelot felt his ears beginning to ache from exposure. For a moment he envied Raikov the aesthetic insulation of his nonstandard blond shag. "Get out of here, Raikov. The sooner you go the sooner I can follow.”


	15. Chapter 15

_There's tarts and whores but you're much more  
You're a different kind 'cause you want their minds_

(Paul Weller)

 

Ivan lay idly beneath the sheets of Volgin’s bed; naked, waiting. His smile was palpable in the semidark.

It had been too good, too succulent a coup. He doubted anything else could have disquieted the major so thoroughly, but Ocelot’s guns were reverent objects. He had seen the way Adamska held them, led with them, thrust them into the world. The way his index finger finessed the trigger. It wasn’t so much a pull as a caressing squeeze.

It was entirely possible that Ocelot himself had no concept of his guns as object manifestations of his raging libido. He was young, after all. Not so very young as soldiers went, but certainly young for his rank. Several years younger than Ivan himself. Twenty? He thought that sounded right.

Raikov stretched languorously, turning his head to gaze out the window. How he’d loved the look on Ocelot’s face. His light eyes luminous, wide with shock. Luscious and sullen, like a cupid with a toothache.

 _Perhaps I should have gone down on my knees_ , he thought, ruffling his hair thoughtfully. No, he decided, after a moment’s consideration. As much as he liked the idea of kneeling in the blinding snow before a lover, it was too much, too soon.

The door opened, and Volgin’s unmistakable silhouette soon filled it, embossed against the light of the hallway, the light razoring over his smooth, arctic hair, while obscuring his face in shadow.

Raikov was glad to see him. He’d been hard beneath his winter coat, and he was still hard.

Volgin made no sound, but wasted no time either, punishing hands finding the front of his binding greatcoat and tearing it from his body, revealing the colossal outlines of his brutal shoulders and arms.

Raikov reclined against the headboard, watching with appreciatively indolent eyes as Volgin moved toward the bed. Then the Colonel was covering him, he was caged beneath that formidable body, and he felt the aching pull inside him, demanding and inevitable.

Broad hands pushed his thighs up and back, and this time there was no tingle of voltage, as he hadn’t even paused to remove his insulating gloves. Volgin shoved inside him without another word, breaching him, spreading him, and he relished the yielding of his body, the way his flesh succumbed. The low buzz of lightning hummed in his body and ears, but it was a mild charge by Volgin’s standards, barely testing Ivan’s tolerance. The Colonel pulled no punches, his thrusts deep and unrelenting, and Raikov gripped his arms for resistance, feeling the muscles work beneath his clutch.

It was impossible to think of anyone else while the Colonel was fucking him. Ivan was good at remaking reality and presenting it to others, as well as himself. But even the most willing suspension of disbelief would be hard pressed to ignore the verisimilitude of Volgin’s broad cock inside him, his towering monolithic form, the scent of musk and cologne that permeated his senses, purging him of all previous distractions.

His lust might have been for Ocelot, but his body came for Volgin, shuddering, convulsing, and crashing to subside in sweet and glowing ruin.

Raikov lingered, savoring the aftershocks as the Colonel kept on, striving for climax. The room was silent, save for his harsh breathing, the sharp steady slap of his hips against the backs of Raikov’s angled thighs.

It was easier for him when pain was involved. 

“What do you need?” Raikov asked.

“Nothing. Just...let me look at you.” Volgin continued to pummel him, his jaw set and his eyes fixed on Raikov’s face.

A few minutes later he reached orgasm, with a jolt of current that made Ivan’s consciousness recede, only to re-flood him like tide. He was aware of Volgin’s primal growl, as he lunged forward one last time, crushing his hard mouth against Raikov’s soft hair.

From there he lost track of cognizance, succumbing to the cumulative exhaustion of fresh air and electroshock. The last perception he held was very elemental and undefined, merely the awareness of Volgin’s warm, solid form against his own.

Raikov woke up some time later, drowsy and disoriented. He pushed his hair out of his face and glanced to his side, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Volgin lay on his back, his eyes wide open and brooding. "You’re restless,” he murmured.

Volgin grunted.

“What is it, Zhenya?” He was awake now, almost having shed his sleep-induced haze.

“I had a strange dream,” said Volgin, staring upward, his expression unadorned.

“What was it about?” asked Ivan indulgently, shifting himself up on his arm to better regard the Colonel’s stoic features.

Volgin frowned. “I was injured.” After a moment, he laughed derisively. “A tiny wound. A snake bite.”

Raikov ran his fingers over the scarred crest of his brow, gently dismissive. “You wouldn’t even feel that.”

Volgin made an appreciative noise and closed his eyes. “No,” he agreed. “All the same…it rankled.”

The Colonel’s scars blended with the deep slashing shadows that striped the room, giving him the appearance of an unmarred face. It made him look younger than his thirty-six years, like the reckless overgrown boy hero of a Norse myth, and not the god of thunder himself.

Raikov knew an illusion when he saw one.

Volgin was frowning deeply. “Then I looked at my forearm, and I noticed it.”

“It, sir?”

“Blood poisoning. Five insidious red streaks, branching upward. Like lightning.”

Raikov paused. "Strange dream.”

“Huh.”

“Let me make it better.” Ivan leaned over and kissed the granite mouth, easing his lips open, feeling it crumble beneath.


	16. Chapter 16

_And I'm not just here 'cause we have to_  
Go inside at night  
I will overrun you and settle  
With military might 

(The Posies)

 

He preferred to stand. 

He stood at attention, he stood in interrogation. He often stood to fuck, bending Major Raikov over whatever was available, or bracing him against a wall. There was rarely a time when he wouldn’t, given the option. 

Helicopter travel was no exception. 

It was good, very good, to stand unsupported in the open door of the carrier, immovable. Let the wind buffet him hopelessly. Volgin smiled to himself as they passed out of the mountain range and over lower Tselinoyarsk. It was a short trip, relatively speaking. Fifty minutes by air. That was good.

To his left, Ocelot and Raikov were quiet, willfully ignoring one another, reposing at extreme ends of the rear jump seat bench like petulant children. The width of the cabin didn’t allow them much latitude, but each seemed determined toward his own detachment. 

Ocelot was slouched back against the sheet metal, glowering, his arms folded. In the opposite corner, Raikov reclined; legs straight, boots crossed at the ankle, expression aloof and petulant.

Volgin’s gaze lingered on his Vanya, hungrily devouring his image. It would be hard to be without him, even for two weeks.

He didn’t like it, but it had to be Ivan. The fact remained that Major Raikov was his executive officer, his left hand. The commission preceded being his lover, however much those two things might have shifted priority in his mind.

Graniny-Gorki would be secure under Major Ocelot’s mercenary watch. Brutal little bastard, he thought, with absent fondness. 

He never had to worry about Ocelot.

Volgin looked down at the landscape that passed beneath them like water. They were well beyond the marsh mangrove forest that lay at the base of the mountains, and over the terrestrial woodland.

He frowned, then chuckled. “Huh. You boys won’t like this much.”

There was a pause.

“What’s that, Colonel?” asked Ocelot, dutiful but vague in his delivery.

Volgin smirked. “Snow. As far as the eye can see.”

“Great,” muttered Ocelot.

“I don’t get it,” grunted Volgin, who had gone back to staring at the ground. “I thought this was a tropical forest.”

“Actually, it’s not,” remarked Raikov, without turning his head. “It’s a subtropical mixed boreal-steppe zone.”

Ocelot snorted.

“Whatever it is,” Volgin said, dismissively, "it looks like Chukotka.”

“Aren’t you a chukchi, Major Raikov?” drawled Ocelot. “You’ll feel right at home.”

Volgin was wryly amused, though he didn’t smile. Ivan was no more a chukchi than he was a shoehorn, but Ocelot’s brattish prattle was always entertaining.

“Why of course, comrade major. We ate nothing but bark and lived in an ice cave. However, you’re wrong about one thing. Only father was a chukchi. Mother was a reindeer.”

A chuckle escaped the set stone of Volgin’s lips. “You’ve never told me about your mother, Ivan.”

“Didn’t I, sir? Yes, she could pull a sled like no other,” he answered dryly. "Father was very proud."

Ocelot scowled. “At least we know he married the prettiest one.”

Raikov’s lips quirked, and he opened his mouth, but seemed to think better of it, fingers poised at his chin. He raised his eyes to the ceiling disinterestedly.

Volgin turned back to the open door. 

“Huh. It’s going to be a long two weeks for the two of you.”


	17. Chapter 17

_Seen you before, I know your sort,  
You think the world awaits your every breath  
You’ll be my friend, or so you say  
You’ll help me out when the time comes_

(Paul Weller)

 

The Colonel was the first to disembark after landing, wasting little time. 

Ocelot was on his feet, ready to follow, when he felt a hand on his wrist. "That was almost a compliment,” whispered Raikov, in his ear. “You should be more careful, Adamska.”

Ocelot smirked. “Because of Volgin or because of you?”

Raikov laughed, and let his fingers graze downward. “Who are you more afraid of?”

A pause, and Ocelot turned, swiveling slowly to face him. “Do I look afraid, Ivan Raidenovich?”

His eyes met Ivan’s, and he saw the illicit thrill there, even as Raikov shrugged. Raikov clearly knew it was a caught moment, and he didn’t care. Anything to toy with him, to capture his undivided attention.

Ocelot’s eyes narrowed. “It wasn’t a compliment, Raikov.”

The Major tilted his head, bemused and silent. Ocelot’s eyes grazed over his face, taking it in at a glance. "It’s merely the observation of a cold, hard fact.”

Raikov’s breath was swift and light. He was less than calm, Ocelot realized, with absent surprise. “What’s wrong with you?” he demanded, scowling. “You look like the moon just fell on your head.”

“ _Narmani_ ,” said Raikov, softly. “It’s nothing.”

“You’re bizarre, Raidenich,” muttered Ocelot. “Are you sure you’re not a reindeer?”

Raikov laughed. Almost too charming, too sudden, the sound. “I’m a Belarusian, if you must know,” he said. He tipped his head, carelessly letting his hair fall around his face so that Ocelot couldn’t see his eyes anymore, and wonder about the unfamiliar landscape. “Best to get a move on,” Raikov added, pleasantly. “After you, comrade.”

Ocelot nodded, realizing Raikov was right, even though the whole exchange had passed in scarcely any time at all. It was best not to tempt fate, especially when there was no gain. _Gain_ , he thought contemptuously. _And if there were, what exactly would that be, Ocelot?_

He glanced at the door, and turned accordingly, belatedly following in Volgin’s wake, hearing Raikov close behind him, their jackboots clanking with hollow precision on the metal floorboards of the Kamov.

Outside the sunshine melted over the landscape, and from the corner of his eye he caught Raikov’s smile as he stepped down onto the snowy ground. He was pleased, as Ocelot suspected he would be. Graniny-Gorki was isolated and tranquil. It lay deep within the wilderness, merely a single freestanding laboratory building behind an innocuous perimeter wall, surrounded on all sides by a dense cloak of forest canopy.

“Come along, both of you,” declared Volgin. “I want to see this place before I leave you to it.”

As they passed through the main gates into the courtyard, Ocelot resisted the urge to pull his guns and busy his idle hands, forcing himself to study instead, every detail of his environment that didn’t include his radiant counterpart. He noticed artillery and supply sheds, marginalized on one side of the snow-covered grounds that spanned the expanse around the structure itself. He noticed the pleasant entryway, with its white columns and tiered steps.

It was not an immense building, and certainly after the monstrous sprawl of Groznyj Grad it looked almost quaint, like a vacation cottage.

He smirked. The guns came out.

The Lieutenant who escorted them walked as if he were cold, stiff and stalking in his olive everyday uniform. If he was resentful at being required to march out and greet his superiors, eschewing the heated oasis of the building, he gave no sign of it. 

“I did a head count of all the scientists,” he was saying, stalwart and white-lipped. “Twenty-eight in all, sir, but I’m told by Granin that number is a semi-floating variable, give or take their occasional attempts to flee the premises.”

Volgin grunted. "Escape? Any of them manage it?”

“Only back to nature, sir,” replied the soldier, succinctly.

“What the hell does that mean?” demanded Ocelot. He was throwing his gun in the air as he walked, like a boy playing jacks, letting the stock slap lightly against his palm with each catch.

“Major sir. It means, sir, that men of science do not excel in the wilderness. They’re good at describing the fauna, not avoiding it.”

Ocelot laughed, a diminutive huff, but present nonetheless, and saw the evidence, his breath made manifest in white vapor.

“Is that number sufficient, major?” asked Volgin, shifting his gaze from their guide to the man at his shoulder.

“Twenty-eight is pure cake,” said Raikov. “I can supervise that many unassisted.”

“Fortunately, there’s no need for that,” said the Lieutenant quickly. “We’ve got plenty of men in reserve. Once you give your daily directives for how you want matters to proceed, you’ll be free to deal with whatever you deem priority.”

“Would that be conditioning or brushing, Major Raikov?” Ocelot interjected, dryly.

“Maybe I’ll help you clean your gun, in all my spare time.”

“Maybe I should scrub out your degenerate mind with a bullet,” muttered Ocelot, under his breath.

“Maybe,” thundered Volgin, “The two of you should stop fucking my brain with your foreplay before I show you Kuzka’s mother!”

The Lieutenant’s face remained unchanged. “This is the lobby, sir. If you’ll follow me down this hall, I’ll show you the facilities from the ground up.”

Raikov shot a glance at Ocelot behind Volgin’s back, laughter blooming from silent lips. His eyes were bright, infused with some new vitality, as if someone had set him in the window at last.

Ocelot smiled back, guardedly. He saw only levity, in that moment, and none of the treacherous knowing that Ivan so unconsciously brandished with every gesture, down to the smallest lift of his brows. He reversed his gun, thoughtfully, and started spinning it the other way.

A split staircase confronted them, and the Lieutenant veered his path predictably toward the downward flight, accomplishing a funny sidling move that made his generous jodhpurs sway like a whore’s hips. Privately, Ocelot found it both amusing and worthy of ridicule. He risked a glance at Raikov and saw the embryonic traces of a smile on his face as well, even though his stature remained upright and noncommittal.

“This is Underground Zero,” the Lieutenant informed Volgin, assiduously. “The lab is here, as well as the detention area.”

The subterranean level of Graniny-Gorki was not unlike the prison wing of Groznyj Grad in some respects; there were barred cells with single iron-frame beds and thin blankets, and a long linotile hallway that proceeded around a sharp corner. Once around the corner, they were shown the scientists’ workstations and lunchroom, as well as the office that would be occupied by the supervising officer.

It was excruciatingly dull to think about, and still more dull to witness. Ocelot found himself spinning his guns faster and faster, wishing Volgin would just hurry up and lose his patience already, putting an end to the tourist treatment with a pithy electrical tantrum. Short, sharp, sweet. Then they could get on with things.

He was aware that the dutiful Lieutenant was surreptitiously watching his hands with a mixture of astonishment and unease, stealing sidelong glances, but looking none too secure in his opinion of Ocelot’s prowess. Meeting his hesitant gaze, Ocelot smirked viciously and caught the gun once more, stilling it and tipping the muzzle in greeting.

The officer cleared his throat. “The scientists,” he said, “are housed here too.”

“I don’t think we need to see every supply closet,” remarked Raikov, evidently uninspired.

Ocelot clicked his hammer back. "Let’s get this over with.”

“Yes sir.”


	18. Chapter 18

_I'm up on the hills, playing little boy soldiers,  
Reconnaissance duty up at 5:30.  
Shoot shoot shoot and kill the natives,  
You're one of us and we love you for that._

(Paul Weller)

 

The tour of Graniny-Gorki was perfunctory from that point on.

The Lieutenant--whose name eluded Ocelot, much to his indifference--was clearly savvy to the dynamic of his superiors, and ushered them briskly through the remaining map, all the while wearing a studiously neutral expression on his unremarkable face. His demeanor bespoke a man who possessed a healthy acquaintance with the Colonel’s methodic madness.

He displayed an uncanny knack for absorbing the background, relegating himself to it with seamless ease. They were shown the essentials, and spared the tedious details, which Ocelot could tell pleased all of them, for differing reasons.

Volgin was simply not possessed of the kind of mind that applauded nuance. He thought in broad-brush sweeps of red and black, an impressionistic perspective with a general and inexorable forward trajectory. Details were bothersome things to him, trifles meant to be worked out after the roughing, and always by someone else. _Tryahomudiya:_ ‘Stuff shaken off my balls’, as he was fond of saying.

Raikov was another story entirely.

The major was all presence, as always, a well-wrapped and palatable poison, walking with a stride that suggested he was the only thing under the sun worth shining upon. And yet, there was a sense of wistful absence in his interaction, a divestiture from circumstance. His smile was detached, his responses rote and uncommitted. Every so often they would pass a window, and his gaze would stray.

He wants to be outside, thought Ocelot. He can’t even concentrate enough to fake it.

The thought came to him before he realized it and he was surprised by his own insight. He certainly wasn’t actively seeking enlightenment as far as Raikov’s psyche was concerned. He didn’t need to know his petty thoughts.

Ocelot frowned. So long as they both did what had to be done, there was no need to question anything.

In twenty minutes they had walked through the first floor library and kitchen, and up to the second floor, which held more design laboratory space, and offices, including Granin’s.

“Granin,” barked the Colonel. “I want to speak with him.”

The Lieutenant nodded. “Granin is in his office, sir. He’s expecting you.”

Volgin snorted. “Of course he is. He’s only here by the grace of GRU in any case.”

“I’ll get him, sir, and bring him to you.”

The Lieutenant read between the lines nicely, Ocelot thought cynically, and it had probably served him well in that he’d never been called upon for that ultimate duty of superconductor. He was off immediately, rounding the corner with slapping strides.

“Colonel,” began Ocelot. “With your permission, I’d like to have a look at the grounds.”

“Dismissed, Ocelot. I won’t be needing you for this.”

“Thanks,” muttered Ocelot.

Raikov’s disturbingly pretty face shot him a supremely dirty look.

“You too, Major,” added Volgin, with an indulgent glance at him. “Go with Ocelot.”

The supremely dirty look transmogrified into a gorgeous smile, which Raikov turned on Volgin at full voltage. “Yes, sir.”

Volgin crossed his arms tightly over his broad chest. “This won’t take long. I’ll rejoin you outside.”

Raikov was already well on his way toward the stairs by the break of his salute, and Ocelot smirked as he holstered his gun, intending to follow him at a leisurely clip. A massive hand curved around his shoulder, holding him back. “Hold up. A word with you, Ocelot.”

Ocelot’s eyes narrowed as he turned. “Of course, Colonel.”

“At ease,” Volgin grunted, releasing his arm.

Ocelot relaxed warily, shifting his weight back onto one leg. The Colonel’s face was solemn but not grim. Although the difference was subtle, it was crucial to differentiate the two. He’d studied Volgin’s expressions with the intense concentration of a field geologist, and felt fairly assured that he knew how to read the shifting and cryptic stone by now.

“What is it, sir? Something about Granin?”

Volgin snorted. “That fool? Hardly.”

Ocelot stood, with his eyes fixed and resolute, waiting for the Colonel to explain his purpose. He hoped it was something easily deflected, something rational and explicable.

“It’s about Major Raikov.”

So much for his hopes and dreams. Ocelot scowled inwardly. However, he kept his face impartial, eyes slightly narrowed. “What about him?”

The Colonel set his jaw, meeting his gaze. “I think you know how I feel about Ivan,” he said, slowly.

About Raikov? Surely all of Groznyj Grad knew that, or had heard it for themselves. He wanted to laugh, but Volgin was unmistakably serious. “It’s no secret, sir,” Ocelot replied, vaguely.

He wasn’t sure where Volgin was heading with this little meeting of the minds, but it paid to be cautious in light of certain things that had transpired. Which was exactly nothing, his mind insisted, resentfully. Nothing but a few little good-natured head games between comrades.

Volgin chuckled softly. “I don’t like letting him out of my sight, Ocelot. I enjoy his company. He’s…very important to me.”

“Of course, sir.”

“And if something were to happen to Ivan, I don’t even like to think about what I might do.”

Ocelot paused, a frown crossing his face. “With all due respect, sir, I wouldn’t worry about Major Raikov.”

“I don’t worry about Ivan, Major. It’s everyone else I worry about.”

The conversation was beginning to feel vaguely surreal to Ocelot, who was finding the point of the matter elusive. He could only guess at the machinations of Volgin’s convoluted cerebral clockworks, and try to answer accordingly. “He’s never in the field, Colonel. He’s perfectly safe.”

Volgin smiled. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Ocelot. Because I want you to make sure he stays that way.”

Ocelot could feel his brows invert. “Beg your pardon, sir?”

“I’m counting on you to keep an eye on him while you’re here at Graniny-Gorki, Ocelot.”

“Raikov’s a big boy, Colonel,” Ocelot said testily. “I don’t see why there would be a problem.”

The Colonel grunted. “Like I said. It’s not Major Raikov that concerns me.”

“Understood, Colonel.”

“Good. I knew I could count on you, Ocelot.”

Volgin gave him a hearty grunt and a clap on the shoulder, and Ocelot’s eyes narrowed at the impact. Then, as if it suddenly occurred to him, the Colonel paused and turned. "Another thing. About you and Ivan.”

“Colonel, there’s nothing-”

“The mutual back-biting is cute, Major, but don’t hate-fuck yourselves into an impasse. I need things to go smoothly.”

“I think you underestimate me, Colonel. And to a lesser extent, Major Raikov,” muttered Ocelot.

“Not at all.” Volgin gave a rare smile, entirely without cynicism. “You’re both by my side for a reason.”

Ocelot refrained from making the quip that offered itself on a silver platter. “Rest assured, Colonel, we’ll…curtail…our animosity.”

“Huh. Don’t get too cozy.” Volgin flexed his gloved fingers as he backed away. “I don’t need a love-fest on my hands.”


	19. Chapter 19

_When you took me by surprise_  
That's half the fun of everything  
Do you miss the point like I do?  
In the certainty of friendships you can ask  
Please return it…

(The Posies)

 

Outside the air was sweet and cool.

The grounds were artfully barren, swathed in snowy white, and crowned at the edges by winter-bare trees, pressing silhouettes of inky non-color against the faded concrete walls and reaching vainly for the blanched, bright sky.

He didn’t see Raikov right away, so he pulled his red scarf up a little higher and sauntered across the yard, nodding to a group of soldiers by the corner of the building. They were dressed in standard GRU field attire, dark grey camouflage and flack jackets. Each carried a loaded Kalashnikov and sported a black balaclava, outfitted and indistinguishable.

Accessory and anonymity, the backbone of military might. He might have known these men, but in truth he would only realize it if he took the time to read the labels on their vests. Even his own Ocelots, the Spetsnatz elite, wore the black facemask, although they were marked apart by their specialized uniforms, the jarring and smart juxtaposition of black and crimson.

Ocelot had not seen hide nor hair of his men, come to think of it, but their absence didn’t alarm him. They were a well-trained unit, capable of independent maneuvering. They were most likely patrolling the perimeter of Graniny, getting a feel for the terrain. Left to their own devices, that was what the Ocelots tended to do.

He rounded the corner of the building, finding a single red metal door in the concrete wall, which looked to be the casual exit, if one wanted to spare the trouble of hauling open the main gate where the convoy trucks were admitted. Beyond the gate was a tight little yard ringed with electrified barbed wire that hugged the premises like a glove. One more little layer against penetration. Ocelot knew that Graniny-Gorki was surrounded by many of these concurrent barriers, like the rings of a tree, or a matrushka doll, each progressively widening outward into the woodland carpet.

Ocelot frowned, and turned, walking along the outside of the main wall to the front of the complex, where a soldier and his dog stood guard at the open entrance gap. The soldier saluted him, calling out a robust “Major, sir!”, whereas the dog seemed less impressed by rank, and continued pushing his nose into the powdery snow, pursuing mice or fox-track, or whatever had captured its doggy imagination.

Ocelot lifted his chin in greeting, forsaking the engagement of a verbal discourse, but then thought better of it as he watched the busy dog, a huge grey bruiser with half-prick ears, pawing relentlessly at the white flock and wagging his stubby tail.

“Where are the kennels?” Ocelot asked, slipping a pre-rolled cigarette out of his pocket and setting it between his lips. “At ease,” he added.

The soldier smiled, an unexpectedly convivial gesture made amusingly gruesome by his full black mask. “No permanent kennels to speak of here, sir, at least not yet. Although we have a full facility not far away, at Bolshaya Past Base. We truck up in shifts for duty, and take our dogs with us. If our shift requires us to bunk-over here for the night, they sleep in the barracks with us.”

“So the majority of the barracks and men are at Bolshaya?”

“Yes sir. But we’ve implemented a small auxiliary, just beyond that rise. Down the hill to your left, sir, and outside this fence. There’s a dog run, for off-duty soldiers to leave their canines in, as well as sleeping quarters for the men. Used to be an outbuilding of some sort. Warmer than the barracks at Bolshaya.”

The dog looked up, as if it had just noticed Ocelot, letting out a lusty, planet-rattling bark. Its broad grey nose was frosted with snow like powdered sugar. "Nyet, Barsuk!” admonished the soldier. “I’m terribly sorry, Major.”

“Dogs bark, comrade.”

“Sir,” acknowledged the guard with a departing salute.

Ocelot ambled down the gentle slope, gun in his hand, now, and twirling idly. It cast odd pinwheeling shadows on the white backdrop of the snow. As he walked his mind wandered far afield, contemplating the Colonel’s unusual request from every possible angle. It certainly wasn’t what he’d expected when he felt that massive hand check him in his path, but he could isolate no ulterior motive in Volgin’s assignation.

Volgin had some strange ideas, even for a psychotic behemoth.

Flakes were beginning to fall from the sky, in preparation for evening. He scowled at the lowering sun; its light bounced off the bright snow and into his pale eyes with the cheerful radiance of thermonuclear glare. Now he could see the concrete block outbuilding, long and low, nestled in a grove of barren trees. The sides were painted with all manner of Cyrillic graffiti, neatly rendered patriotic poems and red stars, worn from the elements, the relentless weather of hot, humid summers and frigid, killing winters.

Raikov was leaning against the wall, looking like a masterful piece of military propaganda himself, a handsome young Russian in his element, kitted out in grey and fleece.

Ocelot looked him over, admitting to himself that as a visual it definitely served its purpose. Ivan was hard to deny. That was his entire treacherous premise; the rock upon which he’d built his whole church, and the face that launched a thousand ships straight into that rock. It was a mercenary talent, no different than his own. Even a form of marksmanship, if you wanted to call it that.

Ocelot smirked, twisting his wrist and angling it so that the gun revolved backward. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all, he thought, as Raikov caught sight of him and smiled, raising his hand to his brow in a teasing salute. After all, Ivan was working with him, not against him.

Raikov removed his ushanka as Ocelot came upon him, letting his cream-colored hair spill out from beneath. It settled on his shoulders in a soft, tousled rain, bright and warm in contrast to the snowscape. He combed his fingers back through it, and it conformed to his touch, smoothing into sleek obedience, falling around his face in lustrous strands.

“Long hair,” Ocelot muttered. “I don’t know how you stand it, but it suits you.”

“Is that another compliment, Adamska?” said Raikov, amused. “You mean to say you like my hair?”

Ocelot paused. He threw the cigarette, unlit, into the snow, where it promptly became invisible. “I don’t dislike it.”

“It’s not as thick as yours,” remarked Raikov, graciously easing past the admission, as if it were an insignificant moment in an organic conversation. “Were you to ever let yours grow, it would be something.”

“That will never happen.”

Raikov laughed softly. “No, I expect not.”

“You have your trees,” observed Ocelot. “Are you happy now?”

He glanced at Raikov, and found the major’s eyes curiously fixed on his own. "The scenery isn’t what I’m used to,” Raikov said, slowly, “but I find it...beautiful, all the same.”

Ocelot looked off to the side, narrowing his eyes. "What did you call it?” he asked. “When you corrected Volgin?”

“The subtropical mixed boreal-steppe zone?”

Ocelot nodded.

Raikov laughed. “Total fabrication.”

“You made it up?”

“Don’t look so appalled.”

Ocelot scowled. “And you tell me I should trust you.”

Raikov inclined his head and gave him a coy, toying smile. "And I thought you were coming right behind me.”

Ocelot made a noise of dismissal. “Colonel Volgin wanted a moment of my time.”

“Did you stay to see Granin, Tovarisch?” asked the Major, crossing his ankles and leaning back against the concrete. “Didn’t think you cared to.”

“No,” said Ocelot, ambiguously. “Nothing like that. I have no use for Granin.”

“What did he want?” Raikov pressed, with gentle insistence.

Ocelot’s eyes narrowed. “Volgin told me to watch out for you.”

Raikov smiled oddly, and Ocelot watched his lips, admiring the soft sensuality they held in their contours. “Kind of him to warn you.”

Ocelot smirked. “Not like that, Ivan Raidenovich.”  _But that wouldn’t be out of line either, would it, Raikov_ , he added silently. The cynical thought came to him without much effort in the pause that followed, and hung, suspended, like a curiosity in a jar.

“…You’re not serious.” Raikov laughed, and he sounded delighted, absolutely delighted. And Ocelot had to admit it was a ridiculous circumstance, ludicrous and the kind of thing that only Volgin’s egotistical oblivion could afford-

No, he corrected himself, sharply, because if it were inane on Volgin’s behalf, that would automatically point to some mutual complicity, and there was nothing like that, nothing between him and the angel-faced major, aside from their co-agent status, and definitely no underpinning compulsion, like the one that might make a man reach out and grab another man, like Ocelot was doing now.

He simply acted, reckless and unchecked by thought, seizing Raikov by the front of his coat and drawing him forward; smooth, hard red pressed into soft, cool grey.

In the aftermath of the motion, Ocelot was keenly aware of how close they stood. Raikov’s fleece-limned lapel was clutched in his gloved fist, and he could feel the heat of his own stare, hollow and hungry. Raikov lifted his gaze to meet Ocelot’s. His eyes were light, like the sky above the taiga. “Care to nibble on the devil’s tail?” he murmured, softly.

“Then he’ll swallow my heart, is that right?”

“So the story goes.”

“And what about Volgin?” demanded Ocelot fiercely, without releasing him.

“Forget him,” the Major said. “He doesn’t matter to us.”

“Bullshit.”

Raikov smiled. “Such a cynic, and still so young.” Ocelot frowned, brows knitting. Raikov was trouble personified and garnished with a bright red bow. He knew that. Co-operative or not, his reticence had nothing to do with Volgin. A touch, a bare graze. Raikov’s hand had moved from his side. Raikov’s hand stroking over his cock, through the black wool of his uniform. “Now. Now is the right time.”

“What?”

"I want you. Here, against the wall.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Maybe,” agreed Raikov, with amenable fever in his eyes. “But not without good reason.”

“Reason doesn’t even enter into it,” Ocelot retorted.

“You want me to say it, don’t you?” A low accusatory whisper, a challenge in the Major’s eyes. “What makes me crazy.”

Ocelot narrowed his eyes. “Keep it to yourself,” he muttered, pushing Raikov back against the weathered concrete.

His body caged Raikov’s, his hands low and seeking, deftly inverting the buttons of the Major’s greatcoat with rough efficiency, throwing it open and letting his hands travel beneath. Ocelot’s intrepid hands grasped firm hips, then slid reluctantly beyond them, impelled by something undefined and urgent.

At the first descent of his touch, Ivan’s head tipped back, a harsh, soft sigh escaping his parted lips. Ocelot caught a tempting glimpse of his mouth and jaw, uptilted, as his hair spilled back into the cold-thickened air like strands of pale, raw silk. He wanted to grasp it, run his fingers through it, feel it, but the idea struck him as intimate, unthinkable. Ocelot pushed away the impulse and turned to more visceral wishes, keeping his hands indecently honest beneath the shelter of the Major’s coat.

He moved his hand boldly over Raikov’s backside, feeling the curved contour of his ass beneath the olive green wool of his breeches, the muscles flexed and taut in the stance he had struck. “So you’re a soldier after all,” he muttered. “Not just a well-dressed doll.”

Raikov made a softly appreciative noise in his throat, and Ocelot found himself liking the response. “I’m a soldier,” he said, “just like you.”

No, realized Ocelot suddenly, it wasn’t true. He was mistaken, and Raikov…“You’re lying,” he said flatly.

“What are you talking about?” murmured Raikov, in the absent tone of disrupted arousal.

“That half-truth.”

Not a soldier. Raikov was just like him. A mercenary. They looked like officers, primped and resplendent, but their minds were divergent, and those, they owned. And their respective weapons. They owned those too. As he was wise, he had no business holding Raikov in his willing arms, any more than Raikov would welcome a loaded gun in his face.

Ocelot scowled inwardly, realizing he’d chosen the worst possible analogy. He paused, stilling his hands where they lay.

Raikov’s eyes swept open.

“No,” announced Ocelot, coolly. “I think I won’t.”

Ivan blinked slowly. He was silent, as a slight, bemused smile crept onto his lips at the corners.

Ocelot withdrew, releasing him abruptly and stepping back, putting some distance between them. For lack of anything else to do, his hands settled on his holsters, fingers clenching unobtrusively, diffusing the tension in his body down to ten imperceptible pinpoints. He frowned, quickly, because it was his best default. Ocelot had no illusions about his readability. His face was too innately expressive to pull off impassivity, but displeasure was a good cover for all contingencies. “I don’t need this,” he uttered. “Not from anyone else, and not from you.”

“I know what you need better than you do.”

Ocelot glared hard at the white ground until he was certain he saw the snow begin to melt. “I doubt that sincerely, Ivan Raidenovich.”

The Major made no move to reclaim his intimacy, but only watched his face, his eyes brooding and veiled, revealing little, suggesting worlds. Eventually he spoke, his voice quietly measured. “Don’t you ever think of it, Adamska? Giving up your games to someone? Someone who knows your weaknesses? Someone who can take up the slack and give you exactly what you need, without your ever having to ask?”

“I never think that way.”

Raikov frowned slowly, gazing out at the treeline. “I don’t believe you."

Ocelot snorted. “Me? You don’t even have to speak to lie with your tongue.”

“Is that why you’re afraid to let me kiss you, Adamska? You think I’ll spell sweet little lies into your mouth?”

“Hardly,” snarled Ocelot. “Like I have anything to fear from a KGB honeytrap.”

“Nor a Patriot one,” amended Raikov, desultorily.

“I don’t care. I’m not play prey for any Mata Harry.”

Raikov shook his blond hair out of his eyes and regarded him artlessly. “Why can’t you just enjoy the benefits of my acquaintance?”

“You’re a cliché with a cock, Raikov,” Ocelot muttered. “A nice twist on an old favorite.”

“Really.”

“Really,” said Ocelot. He was smirking, but there was no humor in it.

Raikov nodded slowly, then gradually inclined his head. "Why do you look so bitter?”

“Because…” Ocelot trailed off, glowering.

“ _Pachimu?_ ” insisted Raikov, coolly.

“ _Patamushtu_ ,” snapped Ocelot. “I’m not fucking explaining myself to you, _svoloch’_.”

Raikov crossed his arms, idly. “Fine,” he said. “Freeze all alone in your castle.”

Ocelot bit his lip, consternated. Hesitant, he flicked his eyes back to Raikov’s face. “It doesn’t have to be a thorn between us, Ivan.”

Raikov’s smile was detached. “If not for the thorn, there’d be nothing between us, Adamska. And you’ve made it clear how you feel about that.”

Ocelot’s eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth to retort, but Raikov shook his head ever so slightly to the negative.

“Keep it,” he pronounced, solemnly. “Kuwabara.”

“What are you babbling about?” Ocelot snarled.

Raikov raised his eyebrows meaningfully. His voice was modulated and precise. “It looks like a storm on the horizon. Coming from behind you.”

Ocelot’s lips closed swiftly and he turned his head to the side, feigning nonchalance.

“Thunderbolt,” intoned Raikov, under his breath, nullifying all trace of expression. “Overhead.”


	20. Chapter 20

_Yes sir, no sir  
Permission to speak sir  
Permission to breathe sir  
What do I say, how do I behave, what do I say?_

(The Kinks)

 

“Majors,” boomed the unmistakable, sonorous voice that proved Raikov honest.

“Perfect timing, as ever,” muttered Ocelot, crossly.

“We were finished anyway,” remarked Raikov, dispassionate and detached once more, like he unfailingly became around the Colonel.

Ocelot scowled, unimpressed with their sudden shift into arctic territory, despite the fact that it was standard procedure. It lacked the good-natured and knowing descent of mutual acknowledgment.

Volgin was approaching across the snowfield, and as Ocelot turned, he was reminded of a replicated mammoth he had seen once, in the National History Museum in Leningrad. It seemed like an inexplicable connection to make at first, as that exhibit had been decidedly static, fixed in time and paint and plaster--and Volgin was an entity with undeniable velocity and motion. However, there was no denying that the mastodon shared Volgin’s enormous stature and fearsome brow. Its pose had been one of forging brutality, massive leg upraised, eternally poised above the artificial flock of its enclosure, a dramatic suggestion of Hannabalian conquest.

Ocelot wasn’t a fan of institutions and inertia. Still, he had liked that part of the museum. The cases of stuffed and mounted fauna, the butterflies under glass. He had enjoyed sauntering among the quiet rows, gazing at the archaic displays, preserved for posterity, tranquil and immortal. Some of the specimens were very old, but still pristine. The most ancient were blanched and transformed--miracleized, in a sense--becoming enigmatic paeans to their kind, much like the pale statues of saints that lined the alcoves of the forbidden cathedrals.

Ocelot didn’t mind that. There was nothing wrong with faded glory, so long as it left you on a pedestal.

He frowned deeply, watching Volgin draw nearer, marking his inevitable progress in the snowdrifts, acutely conscious of Raikov standing silently beside him. Ocelot kept his eyes intractably averted, but still the Major’s presence encroached on his awareness, the bright flash of his hair tainting the edges of his peripheral vision.

Volgin was shaking his colossal head, disgruntled. “That Granin is a worthless son of a whore if I ever knew one,” he said, pausing before them like a wall of man. “Drunk at his desk, scribbling nonsense. I’ll be amazed if any of it ever comes to light.”

Ocelot chose his words carefully. “We have other resources, sir. There’s no need to depend on Granin’s plans.”

“Yes,” agreed Volgin, cryptically. “I’ve been thinking that perhaps we should pursue alternative avenues, just in case he doesn’t produce.”

The Colonel had been thinking. That was never a good development for Ocelot. The random discharges of Volgin’s mental minefield tended to unceremoniously shake the narrow fence he straddled.

“What kind of avenues?” asked Raikov, smiling ingenuously, and Ocelot, still feverishly processing, was grateful that he’d interceded on behalf of the cause. His hesitancy would have rung suspect, and might have even been noted. Once Volgin had mentioned new agendas, his mind had immediately begun cycling though the possible scenarios, sifting the sand for grains of probability.

Volgin chuckled. “I’ll tell you more when you get back to Groznyj, Ivan.”

Raikov paused reflectively, pressing his lips into a contemplative moue. “I think I’d rather know now, sir,” he said. “It would give me something to dream about these long two weeks.”

A dark, throaty laugh from Volgin, pleased and dulcet at the core, but ragged around the edges, like honey turned to grit. “I have an ulterior motive, Major. Maybe I want to ensure that you come back to me.”

As if he has a choice, thought Ocelot, grimacing.

Volgin’s open displays of affection toward Raikov had always unnerved him with their vaguely menacing sentimentality, but suddenly they were absolutely intolerable to his ears, on par with what fox piss on a hot day did for one’s olfactory appreciation. What irked him more was that Raikov was gazing at Volgin with obvious fondness that didn’t seem at all feigned.

_Authenticity proves nothing _, he reminded himself, his cynicism rising anew like a bitter and unrelenting phoenix. _Authenticity is the ultimate objective.___

__Whether Raikov’s emotions were ersatz or actual was immaterial. Either he was a treacherous bastard who could make it feel real, or he was a twisted _opesnol_ who could somehow find a tarnished silver lining in Volgin’s dark cloud. Ocelot wasn’t about to inquire further, should either hypothesis be proven true._ _

__All the more reason why, when it came to Raikov, he was wary as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Ivan had no right to ask for anything different. Surely he knew that. Ocelot scowled and narrowed his focus, purging himself of extraneous thought. Volgin was his prime concern, and he couldn’t afford to ignore a second of his diatribe. Even the minutest observation might furnish him with valuable insight._ _

__At the moment, however, Volgin was merely undressing Raikov with his eyes, and he was not apologetic in that activity. “Button your coat up, Major. You’ll catch your death.”_ _

__A slight catch of Ivan’s breath, audible only to Ocelot, because he’d mentally echoed it._ _

__Raikov’s lithe fingers automatically sought his chest, fixing his disheveled state. His motions were deft, his face unresponsive. “You’re worse than my mother,” he said with a facile smile._ _

__“It’s my duty as your commander,” declared Volgin, amused. “Ocelot, make sure Major Raikov stays warm while I’m not here.”_ _

__“No need to worry, sir. I think Major Ocelot would like nothing more than to keep me fully clothed,” Raikov remarked obscurely, adjusting his collar._ _

__Ocelot’s lip twisted unappreciatively. “He’ll be fine, sir. His mother was a reindeer, after all.”_ _

__Volgin frowned, bending down suddenly._ _

__Ocelot flashed a glance across his broad back, but Ivan’s face was composed and inscrutable._ _

__The Colonel stood up, holding Raikov’s ushanka in his hand. “You’re a disaster, Major,” he grunted, brushing the snow from it._ _

__“It must have fallen off,” intoned Raikov, with a lazy, dismissive smile. He took it from Volgin and settled it over his head. “There. Are you satisfied, sir? I’m a model of military perfection.”_ _

__It was gradual, but arresting- a shifting of tectonic plates as Volgin’s intractable features aligned in a smile, wide and predacious beneath the bright crown of his immaculate hair. "No one has ever satisfied me more.”_ _

__Ocelot rolled his eyes. He was about to strong-arm the conversation back toward its original axis, when a persistent beep sounded in his temple. His scornful glower abruptly went slack, contorting into a frown._ _

__Codec._ _

__It was a reaction, while quiet and unstated, that did not go unnoticed. Raikov cast him a solicitous glance under the auspices of scratching his neck. Ocelot hesitated, then casually stroked the lobe of his ear between his thumb and forefinger. Raikov nodded imperceptibly._ _

__“I was about to go have a look at the canines,” announced the Major, locking his hands behind his back and executing a swivel turn with a lazy cross of his jackboots. “I liked the looks of them. Very sportive.” With infallible nonchalance, almost as an afterthought, he inclined his head, gazing up at Volgin. “Care to accompany me, sir?”_ _

__“Huh,” chuckled Volgin indulgently. “Of course, Major. Coming, Ocelot?”_ _

__Ocelot narrowed his eyes. “I need to piss,” he said laconically. “I’m going to go find a likely tree. Sorry, Raikov,” he added, snidely, after a pause, giving him the finger guns._ _

__“Not a problem, Major,” returned Raikov sweetly. “I’ll miss you.”_ _

__With a parting smirk, Ocelot turned on his heels and made for the treeline. He took quick strides, veering his path a little so that the barracks would obscure his direction in the event that, for some unforeseen reason, Volgin decided to follow him. It was unlikely; one thing Ocelot trusted explicitly was Raikov’s ability to hold the Colonel’s attention._ _

__Now, safely under the forest canopy, he felt isolated enough to answer the call, and finally silence the relentless beeping. Ocelot took a cursory glance at his surroundings, securing the glade. When he was satisfied that he was genuinely acting unobserved, he proceeded. Leaning against a tree, he pressed a gloved fingertip to the end of his maxillary process, where his cheekbone met his ear, damping the external sound and amplifying the auditory bone conduction of the nanomachines._ _

__A man’s voice, undifferentiated. “ADAM?”_ _

__“This is ADAM.”_ _

__Pause, while the voice on the other end checked his identity, matching voiceprint, he presumed. “Confirm. Where are you situated?”_ _

__“The Granin Design Bureau.”_ _

__“Nice clear channel we’ve got this time.”_ _

__“It’s better than Groznyj Grad, at any rate.”_ _

__“What’s the take so far?”_ _

__“No take.”_ _

__“Does Volgin have the Legacy?”_ _

__“Affirmative. I have yet to isolate its whereabouts.”_ _

__“Excellent, ADAM. Is our asset an agent-in-place?”_ _

__“Yes, EVA is in situ.” The definition of understatement, he thought dryly._ _

__“Does EVA have a take?”_ _

__“EVA has yet to hear anything significant.”_ _

__A crackle, of paper or static, Ocelot couldn’t be sure which. “There’s been a lot of activity from Volgin’s end. He’s made contact with a certain unknown commodity.”_ _

__Ocelot scowled. “Unknown, or undisclosed?”_ _

__“Unknown,” replied the disembodied, unremarkable voice. “At least as far as we’ve been debriefed.”_ _

__“I’ll keep an eye out. I’ll apprise EVA as well.” Ocelot paused, glancing toward the outbuilding. Neither Raikov nor Volgin appeared to be in sight. “I can’t spare any more time. I slipped away from a command performance.”_ _

__“Understood. Keep in touch, ADAM.” The connection clicked off before he released the pressure of his fingertip and he grimaced. He hated that click. He hated forgetting to disengage quickly enough to beat the click. It sounded like a gunshot in the chamber of his ear._ _

__Ocelot took his time returning to the barracks, sauntering across the clearing with demonstrable leisure. When he reached the place they’d been, he found neither the Major nor Volgin, so he continued around the corner of the building._ _

__Sure enough, here was the Colonel, hands on hips, watching over the remarkable tableau of at least ten cavorting dogs of matched and unusual greyness, gruff amusement writ in and among the ravages of his foreboding face. The dogs were refreshingly giddy and idiotic, reverting at once to puppy-hood when confronted by snow, and Ocelot couldn’t help but smile slightly himself._ _

__At first glance, he wasn’t able to find Raikov, and frowned, wondering if the Major had gone in search of him, but he didn’t dare take the glaringly uncharacteristic step of asking Volgin his whereabouts. Major Ocelot--the one the Colonel knew and loved--not only wouldn’t care where Ivan Raikov had gone, he would actively refrain from mentioning his absence in the hopes that he might stay that way._ _

__However, upon a second cursory sweep of the scene, he became aware of the Major on his knees in the snow, not far from the teeming mass of dogdom, his hand gainfully employed in scratching the chest of a lolling male with a meticulously bandaged haunch._ _

__Ocelot frowned, not sure how he’d neglected to observe Raikov initially, save for the fact that he hadn’t been expecting to find him quite so close to the ground, and had probably not even included the space below that which his upright body would have normally occupied. He paused to watch the scene, along with Volgin, for a moment, his face disenchanted and noncommittal._ _

__Raikov seemed thoroughly absorbed in roughing up the receptive dog, who rolled over repeatedly and indicated it wasn’t finished being the object of his affections, kicking its legs out like a starfish and demanding more, to which the Major gamely obliged._ _

__Volgin’s laugh was terse, but not without levity. “You like him, eh Major?”_ _

__“I’ve always loved dogs,” murmured Raikov, preoccupied._ _

__“More than cats, I imagine,” Volgin said, glancing at Ocelot with a guttural chuckle._ _

__“I have nothing against cats,” Ivan replied, without irony. “Except that they tend to only accept your affections when they personally feel inclined.” He smiled absently, without looking up._ _

__Ocelot’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth twisted in a show of tacit displeasure, but he remained silent, reaching instead for his guns, and steadying his temper through kinetic distraction._ _

__“His name is Adrik, sir.” From somewhere behind them came an unfamiliar voice, seemingly out of nether ether._ _

__Ocelot turned his head, his mouth opening slightly in curious surprise, and realized the words were directed at Raikov, by a young GRU soldier who stood inconspicuously beside the barrack wall, holding a respectful salute. He looked both eager and hesitant, as if he feared electrical repercussions for his presumption, but couldn’t resist engaging the topic._ _

__“Adrik,” mouthed Raikov, looking pleased. “Did you name him?”_ _

__The soldier nodded readily. “Yes, Major. I raised him from a pup.”_ _

__“What happened to his hip?” Ocelot demanded abruptly, nearly cutting him off._ _

__The soldier frowned. “Gunshot, sir. But Adrushka is a tough boy. He’s been recovering…nicely,” the young man trailed off, uncertainly, risking a glance at Volgin, as if he had suddenly become concerned about how the Colonel might assess the value of a wounded guard dog._ _

__“Huh,” Volgin muttered. “Won’t be much good with a fault in his foundation, no matter how well he heals up.”_ _

__Ocelot’s mouth slipped open, and he spoke before thinking. “Colonel, this dog is fine. Surely you’re not suggesting…”_ _

__Volgin looked quizzical. “That he’s useless for patrol? You surprise me, Ocelot. You know as well as I do that a compromised army does no good.”_ _

__“But Colonel...” began Ocelot, urgently, feeling a queasiness overtake him. He realized Raikov was looking up, but he didn’t seem alarmed in the least, just intrigued, studying not Volgin’s face, but Ocelot’s own. Curiosity in his almondine eyes, not apprehension, not horror. Damn you, Raikov, he thought. Wake up and stop eye-fucking me. Volgin’s going to murder your happy little friend, and you of all people ought to fucking care about it, if you’re so goddamned enchanted with the thing. You of all people can do something about it. Waiting, waiting for the ice-hearted prick to practice what he preached._ _

__But Raikov sat there in the snow, regarding Ocelot with unconcealed fascination, as if he were a culture under glass that had just yielded some amazing secret to the conscientious observer._ _

__A sudden nausea caught his body in its grip. Knowing Volgin, he would let it fall to Ocelot._ _

__Ocelot clenched his jaw and felt a tremor animate his hand. He would never forgive Raikov if Volgin commanded him to do it. If Raikov sat there and let him shoot this blameless animal, knowing he couldn’t refuse, knowing his revulsion. Then he would know the extent of Raikov’s heartlessness._ _

__Ivan slowly removed his gaze from Ocelot, looking suspiciously informed and infuriatingly composed. His hand worried the mastiff’s velvety jowls with impunity. "I agree,” he said. “This dog is unfit for duty.”_ _

__Ocelot’s lips tightened._ _

__The young soldier stepped forward, hands out before him, palms facing up, like a penitent. It was a meaningless but earnest gesture, and Ocelot could read the anxiety in his dark eyes, even as he managed to steady his voice. “Sir,” he ventured, driven by desperation, “I slept on the floor beside Adrik. I shared my rations with him, all so that he could recover. He’s a good dog, sir. Please don’t.”_ _

__Volgin didn’t even deign to acknowledge the young man, but crossed his arms, a slow, unfathomable crease spreading across his mouth. A smile that, while indecipherable in detail, clearly proclaimed how pleased he was with himself. Ocelot knew it well, and it filled him with apprehension._ _

__“Major-” The Colonel began, with a cryptic lilt._ _

__“No,” interjected Ocelot, vehemently, making a decisive crossing motion with his guns and stepping back. “Not me.”_ _

__Volgin snorted, looking vaguely annoyed. “You’re damn right. I’m wasn’t talking to you, Ocelot.”_ _

__Ocelot’s brows vaulted, and drew together quizzically. He was quiet, pursing his lips and glancing between Volgin and Raikov, unsure of what the Colonel intended._ _

__Raikov turned his body slightly, without taking his hand from the dog, tapered fingers stroking mindlessly over the sleek grey coat. “Sir?” he asked._ _

__Volgin chuckled quietly. “You’re good with mercy, Ivan.”_ _

__Raikov frowned, slowly, focus arrested, his fingers pausing artfully in their well-worn track. “Colonel?”_ _

__“Take him, Major. Make a pet of him.” Volgin smiled with magnanimous adoration that somehow entirely failed to soften his granite features._ _

__Ocelot was surprised, and didn’t bother to hide it, letting his face express his incredulity. It hardly mattered, because Volgin’s eyes were far from seeking him._ _

__“I don’t know what to say, sir.” The words were plain enough, but Raikov looked inordinately pleased, flashing a smile that Ocelot knew well, but had never seen on his face anywhere but in Volgin’s immediate presence._ _

__Volgin leaned forward. “It’s nothing, Vanya. I was at Porkkala, remember.”_ _

__All at once, Raikov didn’t look so smug and infallible. He looked startled, for just a moment, before his instinct snapped back like a rubber band, pulling the broken pieces of his charm around him once more. Ocelot had been studying the dynamic between them, more out of morbid curiosity than actual purpose, and now he reacted as well, his lips parting in thoughtful absence as he strove to piece together the source of Raikov’s momentary flash of shock._ _

__“Are we about finished here, then?” Volgin asked, gruffly. He looked around--at Ocelot, who nodded, at Raikov, who climbed to his feet with less grace than usual, as if he’d been incapacitated by blunt trauma._ _

__“Yes, Colonel.” The words fell like dust from his mouth, but Volgin didn’t seem to notice anything awry with his little blue boy, or the softly stricken look that paled his face beyond its customary buttermilk glow._ _

__They followed the Colonel’s mammoth strides back to Graniny Mainbuilding in tandem silence, keeping just abreast of his rampaging form, as usual, but the air had taken a turn. Ocelot could sense the copper, inorganic taint of the atmosphere, like one could smell the onset of rain. There was something universally amiss in the orientation of the general landscape. Galactically lacking, cosmically misaligned. Stars had crossed and wrapped around telephone poles._ _

__Ocelot didn’t like it._ _

__By the time they reached the front yard, Raikov had somehow dusted the shock from his shoulders, resurrecting his invincible poise, the surface intact once more. However, he avoided Ocelot’s seeking eyes, studiously turning his immaculate face to the sky._ _

__A liaison met them at the doors, with a telegram for the Colonel’s eyes only, coded, as far as Ocelot could tell at a passing glance, but not adequately enough to thwart him. He would look at it later. It wasn’t his primary concern at the moment. Whatever it contained, a cursory sweep of the paper left Volgin grinning and distracted, looking unsettlingly pleased. He pronounced them free to settle into their quarters, and pressed a bruising kiss on Raikov’s mouth before setting off toward the building, destination unstated, and unimportant for now, Ocelot thought, grimly._ _

__The entire time the Major had been lingering cagily at the extreme edge of Volgin’s territorial bubble, fairly champing at the bit, his face inarticulate, but his body broadcasting volumes in no uncertain terms._ _

__As soon as the Colonel set them at ease, he was around the corner and putting distance between them, his steps steady and unrelenting against the soft crush of the snow._ _

__“What was that all about?” demanded Ocelot, darting after him. “Is there something I should know, Vanya?”_ _

__Raikov shot him a look, annoyance strained through dismay. “Nothing like that. It’s not relevant.”_ _

__Ocelot narrowed his eyes. “Anything dealing with Volgin is relevant. Anything dealing with you and Volgin, doubly so.”_ _

__“Are you starting to mistrust me, Adamska?” snapped Raikov. “Because now is not a good time.”_ _

__“I trust you enough,” Ocelot hissed, crossing his arms. “To want to keep it that way.”_ _

__Raikov stared for a moment, then dismissed him with a short, clipped laugh, shaking his head contemptuously. He sighed. “You want to know about Porkkala. Fine. Come to my room. I suppose you owe me a visit anyway,” he added, sardonically._ _

__Ocelot nodded slowly. “What about Volgin?”_ _

__Raikov rolled his eyes. “Let me handle him.”_ _

__Considering Raikov’s mood, Ocelot refrained from making any coy remarks about Volgin, and the handling of him, respectively._ _

__Raikov’s expression said he knew exactly what Ocelot was thinking, and he didn’t appreciate it._ _


	21. Chapter 21

_They say that character you play is rising fast_   
_So you get drunk, make a half second jump_   
_And experience it as the past_   
_But this is it, the closer you get_   
_The deeper you go, the tighter the net looks to me_

(Steve Kilbey)

 

 

 

The knock on his door was sharp and succinct.

Ocelot was surprised to hear Raikov’s voice. “I’m here,” he said. “Let me in.”

Ocelot frowned, unlatching the door. “I thought it was supposed to be your quarters,” he said, by way of greeting.

He stepped aside so Raikov could pass over the threshold, and watched as he walked aimlessly into the center of the room, standing there as if he were waiting for judgment to strike down from on high. Or maybe he was only looking for a chair.

Ocelot followed, arms crossed over his jacket, gloved hands tucked neatly beneath. His eyes roved over Raikov, taking him in, catching on the bottle of vodka in his hand, which he was already uncapping. “Would you like a glass for that?” Ocelot leaned idly against the wall, his annoyance temporarily suspended in favor of bemusement.

Raikov reached into his greatcoat and produced another bottle. “Don’t worry,” he said, flatly. “I brought one for you too.”

“That one doesn’t look chilled.” He took the extraneous vodka from Raikov’s unresisting grip, crossing to the window. “Let’s start with the one, all right, Major? We’ll share, with a couple of glasses between us.”

Raikov sank into a black vinyl armchair, slowly rubbing his eyes. Beautiful, beleaguered.

Ocelot pushed his lips out, shoving open the window sash. The familiar cold bit his face affectionately. Snow swirled outside in the silver dusk, and it was too perfect, too affected. It looked artificial to him, like a set-piece created for this scene alone. If he looked up, it was entirely feasible that he might see a stagehand above, standing on the roof of Graniny-Gorki, shaking soft false flock out of a pillowcase into the halo of an ethereal gel light.

And Raikov. He was no actor. He was a doll, a mannequin. An effigy in living wax, with softly luminous skin, and lips that had melted under the heat of his own.

Ocelot’s mouth tightened. He set the bottle of vodka outside on the sill and slid the window closed, shutting out the cold, persuasive smell of twilight.

Raikov was unbuttoning his coat, shrugging the wool carapace off his uniformed shoulders and onto the back of the chair. His expression was unfathomable, but his eyes were resolute.

“Here,” said Ocelot, handing him a pair of shot glasses. “You might as well top us both off.”

Raikov nodded. He took the bottle that rested on the table and tipped it to pour the drinks, pushing one of them toward Ocelot with a careless hand.

The vodka wasn’t chilled, Ocelot realized, scowling as it touched his lips, but to his surprise, Raikov seemed not to care, studiously drinking his down in one slow, steady pull. Then he poured another. This one he lingered over for a moment, pausing, his head slightly inclined, hair spilling blondly over the olive lapels of his uniform jacket.

“It looks exactly like water, this poison. Like snake venom,” he added, shooting Ocelot an enigmatic glance. “That’s colorless as well. Strange that something can be transparent and deceptive all at once.” He absently swirled the vodka in his glass. “Do you know, Adamska, that I don’t even drink?” He laughed softly and rubbed his temple. “Scarcely, if ever.”

Ocelot snorted. Perhaps Raikov disdained the everyday battery acid that passed for liquor around Groznyj Grad, but he had trouble believing the Major abstained to any ascetic extent. “I’ve seen you drink, Raikov. You’re not too bad at it.”

Raikov shook his head and reset his cap. “Tea,” he said solemnly. “That is what I drink.”

Ocelot paused, narrowing his eyes.

Raikov smiled. “I see you hesitating. It’s all too clear, Adamska. You’re wondering, if this is true, why I would allow myself to drink around you. You’re wondering if I have anything to hide.” A cryptic smile. “Transparent,” he said to his glass.

“Tell me about Porkkala. What was Volgin talking about, Ivan Raidenovich? I want to know.”

“I was seventeen years old,” Raikov said, gazing down at the innocuous liquid. “Which would have made you twelve at the time. Isn’t that funny?”

Ocelot smiled grimly. There had been nothing particularly funny about his childhood, in the mercenary care of the Philosophers, deprived of a mother and an identity, but Raikov couldn’t know that. “Depends on your idea of humor.”

A desultory laugh trickled from Raikov, followed by a sigh. “Well, you know mine.”

“I’m not expecting any jokes, Ivan Raidenovich. I just want to know what happened.” There was a slight pause, and Ocelot was aware of the light musk of Raikov’s aftershave, the scent disquietingly familiar in the strangeness of these new quarters.

Raikov’s eyes were elsewhere when he finally spoke. “You remind me of someone, Adamska,” he said. “His name was Lisak Isotalo.”

Ocelot frowned. “I don’t see how that…”

“It does, believe me,” Raikov said. “I met him in Porkkala. We served across from one another.”

“What do you mean ‘across’? Isotalo? That’s not a Russian name.”

Raikov gave him a pointed look. “No,” he said. “It’s not.” The Major polished off his second dram of liquor, stroking the burn from his lips with a tapered finger. He sat back in his chair, seemingly resolved into stoicism once more. It was a shift into the old Raikov, the persona that Ocelot was accustomed to: unruffled and dispassionate.

“The KGB sent me into the regular army at sixteen, as a sleeper agent. That was 1957. At the time, Russia maintained a military base on the Porkkala peninsula. We had forced the Finns to lease us the area in 1944, for a period of fifty years. They were driven out of their houses and farms, and we took them over. It was part of the agreement.” He smiled. “I say ‘we’, comrade, but of course, you and I were only children then.”

Ocelot made an indeterminate noise. “I know something about the Finnish occupation,” he muttered.

Raikov picked up the bottle once more. “So, there I was, straight out of charm school and into the field. I was assigned to an area of Porkkala called Sjuntio. The Soviet army had taken up residence in a 15th century estate, which was surrounded by picturesque countryside. It was all farmland and lupines and airy forests of birch and pine. The whitewater stream beside the castle was crowned with a bridge and an old wheelhouse.” He paused, smiling as he filled his glass once more. “It was really quite a change from the normal accommodations, the inescapable concrete of Soviet military life.”

“I can imagine,” replied Ocelot, allowing Raikov to refresh his own glass as well, the brandished bottle an unspoken question.

Raikov sighed, and set the vodka on the table once more. “In any case, it was exclusive. Only Russians were allowed in Porkkala while we occupied it. Foreign photography of all kinds was expressly forbidden. No one was even permitted to look into the area, not by air, not by land. The windows of Finnish trains that passed through the territory by necessity were tightly shuttered.”

“Where does your friend fit in?” Ocelot interjected, scowling.

“I was getting to Lisak.” Raikov’s tone sounded softer, suddenly, and wistful, but perhaps he had only imagined it. Ocelot frowned, and took a generous sip of vodka.

“I was assigned to guard the border in a remote part of the Finnish woods, not too far from the manor. The Finns would respond in kind, posting a guard on the other side of the imaginary line. So every Russian border soldier came to have a Finnish counterpart, keeping his post literally inches away. Since there was little threat from either side, our interactions were quite amicable.” He shrugged, seemingly amused. “We were all bored and young. We wanted to have fun, not to fight. Our sentiments did not reflect those of our countries. What can you expect, putting a bunch of boys together in the middle of nowhere? We came to know our counterparts well, became good friends with them. We spent holidays together, shared cigarettes. We would tease one another by stepping across the border line and jumping back.”

Ocelot smiled faintly, but Raikov’s eyes were fixed on the air before him.

“Lisak,” he said, “was the young man stationed across from me. My nearest Russian comrade was a mile away, so I was grateful for his company. I could speak some Finnish, but not so well as he spoke Russian, so I assume our great Motherland’s plan of Russification had been at least somewhat successful.”

Raikov gave a quiet, wry laugh. Ocelot watched his hands as he toyed with the glass, tapping its rim distractedly.

“Over the year, we became close confidantes. We spent long days talking in the warm sun. We spent late nights together in the dark woods, with a fire between us. We exchanged stories and jokes, and my Finnish improved. Lisak spoke of his family at length. He had come from a farm not far away in Lohja, and his mother often sent his sisters with baskets of fresh bread and sweet rolls to him at the front. His father sent liquor from his homestead still. He shared all of this with me, without hesitation, and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.”

“Sounds like it,” muttered Ocelot, leaning back in his chair.

Raikov glanced at him, looking mildly inquisitive.

“Go on,” Ocelot said, scowling.

The Major shrugged. “Even his family came to know of me, through his letters. At Christmas, his mother sent us each a beautiful muffler of homespun wool to keep us warm. I gave him a pocket watch that had been my father’s. Lisak had a gift for me as well. I can still remember the grin he wore, and the delight that I felt, when he moved aside the bundle of cloth and I first saw the tiny Shepherd puppy in his arms.”

Raikov paused, a gentle expression on his Apollonian features, almost dreamy in the low lamplight. “She was all fluff and feet, nothing more- a little girl. Everyone adored her, even the commanders. A feminine presence was welcome in our young men’s exile. She would grow up to be a beautiful dog, a shining testament to her kind. I was touched. I wanted to give her a traditional Finnish name, and Lisak laughed and said that with my dubious expertise I’d best call her Koira.”

“Koira?” asked Ocelot.

“That would be Dog."

“Witty,” muttered Ocelot, reaching for the vodka.

Raikov gave him a tolerant roll of his eyes. “There’s not much more to tell about Lisak Isotalo…except this. One evening, I crossed the line in a different way.” Raikov paused. “I kissed him, childishly careful not to violate the boundary, as if it truly mattered, in the middle of oblivion, in the middle of the night. And he laughed at me, and pulled me over the border.”

Ocelot downed his vodka.

Raikov seemed preoccupied, his gaze downcast, fingers steepled. “That was just before the orders came from Moscow, to immediately surrender the Porkkala area. The so-called lease was dissolved. Once more it would become Finnish territory, and we would be removed and reassigned. I saw Lisak for the last time the day before the official withdrawal.”

The steady snowfall had been joined by driving wind, a mounting blizzard outside, but Ocelot scarcely noticed it. His gaze was fixed in Raikov’s general direction, while mindfully avoiding the Major’s eyes, which suddenly seemed to him a realm of even more treacherous proportions. “Go on,” he intoned, absently adjusting his beret.

Raikov stared out at the milken oblivion beyond the window. “We vacated the area abruptly, and all of their houses and lands were once more theirs to reclaim. They did, of course, but with great bitterness. They found their houses painted green and blue, they found Cyrillic on their walls.”

Ocelot tossed his head dismissively. “They should have been pleased,” he muttered. “That’s almost forty years shy of the original agreement.”

“When the Finns returned…” Raikov paused. “They shot all the dogs and cats in Porkkala.”

Ocelot scowled. “Why?”

Raikov’s smile was distant and hollow. He shrugged. “They claimed it was to stop the spread of disease. To cleanse the town of the pestilence they said was brought by so many years of occupation. But these weren’t mangy wolves and feral tomcats. They were Russian pets. It was an act of transference, of vengeance, no more, no less. An impotent retaliation against innocents.” Raikov shook his head, slowly, as if trying to dispel the darkness of his thoughts. He laughed, softly, tonelessly. “They had always called us ‘those Russian dogs’. To them, it was a symbolic reprisal against their oppressors. Yes, it was a cleansing of sorts. It was murder in semaphore.”

“Cowardice,” snarled Ocelot. “Filthy bastards.”

Raikov’s eyes were downcast. “It’s not easy to think of. Even now.”

Ocelot’s mouth twisted. “You haven’t gotten to the part about Volgin yet.”

“No,” Raikov said quietly.

“Tell me the rest.”

“I will need more,” he said, reaching for the bottle.


	22. Chapter 22

_Devastation, at last, we finally meet_   
_after all of these years,_   
_out here in the street._

(Grant Lee Phillips)

 

We weren’t supposed to be there.

Technically, the last Russian unit had been withdrawn the previous week, to great fanfare. Porkkala had been officially turned over to the Finns, but the KGB was paranoid about the prospect of leaving any sensitive material behind. My unit was told to stay out of sight and conduct one last thorough sweep of Sjuntio and the manor castle grounds before the rightful owners returned to claim it.

Volgin was there when it happened. I remember him very clearly- he was probably twenty-eight at the time, and dressed in the crisply authoritarian uniform of a field major. His face had the same formidable construction, if more embryonic and boyish. It was already branded with the first of many scars, but they were more remarkable then, somehow, for being few. They were scored into his smooth, structured face as if beads of molten lead had limned their path. He was brute and strapping, but in a leaner, hungrier way. A young man, with unformed ideals, but tangibly self-realized.

It was clear even then that he meant to be a reckoning force, but it was an idle observation I made only in passing. He was not my commander, but had come with his unit from another part of Porkkala, with orders to convene with us at Sjundby castle and carry out the sweep jointly. We were literally the last two Soviet units in all of Finland.

My immediate superior was Lieutenant Grigorii Ilyavich Ryeshkev, a tall, willowy man with the languid, down-turned eyes of a Caesar, and blond, beveled hair in swept-back waves like a cinema star. Grisha, as we called him, was good humored, with an easy nature and a natural charisma that enabled him to eschew the distasteful business of authoritarianism.

He stood in stark contrast to Volgin, imperious and steel-eyed, standing like a Communist titan before his troop. It was clear at once that they did not share a philosophy, although they met and allied efforts as good comrades. Certainly there were marked differences in their command style, evidenced by the most cursory comparison between our units.

Volgin’s men were sleek and sharply attired, their expressions stern, features like the crack of a whip. Lieutenant Ryeshkev, by contrast, felt keenly that Siuntio was not Moscow, and did not hold us to strict military standards of grooming. This was an outpost, to his way of thinking, an idyllic backwater, even more remote to the Stadja than Siberia. Hence, our untrimmed locks and open coats, cigarettes at roll call, and caps set askew at rakish angles. Most of the boys managed a crop now and again, but I had always preferred a little length, so I carelessly exploited his indifference and let mine twine around my ears and neck in untamed slips. Eventually it brushed my shoulders, but Grisha never mentioned it, except to tug it affectionately as I passed, calling me Vanka Pavlinka, or Ivan Pavlin, depending on how exasperated he was.

Whether he assigned the more endearing diminutive form, or the more directly sardonic ‘Ivan the Peacock’, he said it in the fond manner of an older brother. In response, I would only laugh and call him Ilyich- for as you know, every Ilyavich is a Lenin- and needle him about his great and glorious duty to the Cause. Grisha would merely shake his head and call me a raz’yoba; tell me to stop “cunting off”.

It never rankled. We had all endured having teasing draznilkas made of our names as children, after all. Even in the rarified prison of the Patriots’ charm school, we taunted one another with them.

However, looking at Volgin, it was difficult to imagine him inventing tender nicknames for his men, much less letting them cultivate wayward flaxen manes like noble savages or Romantic poets.

I could hardly know the irony of that assessment at the time, but it often occurs to me now. If only to remind me how little you can know of someone at a glance.

Our reconnaissance was at night, under the light of a pale February half-moon. Volgin’s unit stood guard in the shadows outside the Manor Castle while we did the sweep, shining no lights, creeping from floor to floor, making sure nothing had been missed. When Grisha was satisfied that everything was clean he called us off, and we made our escape, quickly and quietly. Even though the area around Siuntio was supposed to be deserted for a few days more, Lieutenant Ryeshkev had no desire to linger in what was now officially hostile territory during an uneasy peace.

The snow was high and deep, but packed along the roads. Koira was with us, milling in and among the soldiers, keeping close. I had no intention of leaving her behind in Porkkala, and Grisha knew this; he hadn’t even bothered to broach the subject, just gamely allowed her alongside. It was a quiet night, almost tranquil, and I was sad to be leaving the area, much as I missed Russia. I had grown to love the pastoral countryside- the sloping expanses of flat Finnish granite along the roadside, and the snow-lined branches of pine. In summer there were bright blue lakes fringed with cattails. There were fields of gold wheat and bright yellow safflowers, dotted with red and white painted barns.

And there was Lisak, somewhere in that landscape.

I had no way of knowing where he had been sent, not precisely. Jyväskylä, he had told me. We held each other tightly in that final hour. He had said it several times, as if to imprint the name upon my consciousness and make sure it took, but for all I knew of Finland’s geography he might as well have said he was being transferred to the moon.

We moved stealthily along the edge of the manor grounds, pressed along the walls of plastered stone, down the slight rise it crowned, and behind the cover of the wheelhouse by the stream. Over time, the warped stucco of the old shed wall had been decorated by our whimsical musings and scrawls; the accumulation of the occupation yielded a neat collage of flippant nationalist graffiti, which was readable by the light of the high moon.

 

Артиллеристы и минометчики  
Красной Армии!  
Мощными и меткими огневыми  
ударами сокрушайте оборону  
противника, уничтожайте живую  
силу и боевую технику врага!

 

Artillerymen and mortar men  
of the Red Army!  
Using power and accurate fire  
let us smash the adversary's defenses,  
destroy the enemy's manpower  
and fighting machinery.

 

All was calm, all was bright. Not a soul stirred in the quiet woods, but Grisha took no chances, his languid manner transformed, now furtive and alert where his men were concerned. Although Volgin would probably have preferred to storm ahead, secrecy be damned, he kept his men dutifully in line, acceding to the Lieutenant’s tactics for reasons known only to himself. Perhaps he felt it was a trivial operation in the magnitude of his scope, or maybe he simply was disinclined to argue strategy in an area he was unfamiliar with.

The rushing of the nearby stream was soothing and white, spilling over the bedrock, like cold organic chimes. Apart from the call of an occasional night bird, there seemed to be nothing alive under the sky. Certainly no sign of the returning displaced. None of us heard the sound that made Koira prick up her Shepherd’s ears even higher than usual, almost comically touching atop her majestic head.

I had never expected her to react so unpredictably- she had always been infallibly responsive to my commands, unfailingly trainable and eager to please. It was absolutely unprecedented for her to dash out from behind the shelter of the building where we crouched, obscured by shadow, but as I watched, she did exactly that.

“Koirushka,” I hissed, beneath my breath, “Iji shudah!” I put out a hand to snap my fingers, but it was quickly stilled by Grisha, who wordlessly hushed me in mid-motion with a grasp of my wrist. He had heard something, too, then, I thought, and suddenly my heart rose in my throat at the realization that Koira was not barking.

Among dog breeds, the Shepherd is a silent assassin. A noisy hound is probably only complaining away its spare time, but a quiet dog is a focused dog, with intent and a target in its sights.

The only gift the universe saw fit to give me on that day- the sole concession- was that I did not see what happened next. It was a gift, in the same way that a blindfold at your own execution could be called a gift.

Yet I heard. I heard very well, and to hear was to know, and to know was to see, if only in my mind’s eye, which has always been a hundred times more vivid than reality.

To hear was a kick to the throat.

The crack of a shotgun rang out, singular and merciless, and was immediately muffled by the blood in my ears, as I reeled back and pushed away from Grisha, away from the men, my breath caught like a bird in a box, my hands clutching, cold and inarticulate, unable to express the shocking pain that animated me. I surged forward desperately, and was caught about my waist by the Lieutenant, who pulled me back against him in a frank and deathlike grip that I would never have imagined he was capable of.

“Stoy, Ivan Raidenovich,” he told me, in a choked whisper. His face was a wrenching warring of grave insistence and anguished empathy. I couldn’t look at him.

She made no sound, no whimper or yelp. She did not cry out for me in her confusion. But I knew, as well as I knew my own name. The bullet had found her.

How did I know?

I can’t tell you, any more than I can tell you how my own tongue froze dry in my mouth, sparing not even the likes of Grisha’s choking whisper. Nor can I impart to you the bitter taste of the liquid that seeps from a cracking heart, or the fluttering that welled sour and violent in my stomach like a thousand nightmare butterflies.

I broke, there, in his arms, and would have collapsed onto my knees if it were not for my comrades, hands, holding me upright. As it was, I had changed from a man to a kind of devastated marionette, broken and reliant on the strings of their kinetic charity. She hadn’t listened, the one time I had carelessly relied on her to govern herself, and it was my transgression, my failing, for leaving her to her own devices when I should have been vigilant.

To this day, it owns a shameful part of me. It is an oversight I will never be able to revoke, resolve, or reconcile.

I must have withered, for a moment, muscles lapsing slack and weak under the unbearable weight of it all, and lulled them into thinking I was compromised in the face of grief, for the stricture of their reforming circle eased, almost at once. I must have seemed utterly distraught, destroyed and useless- for there was no other reason for Grisha to relax his hold on my body, and Grisha was no idiot conceived by a finger, despite his indolent approach.

I don’t know what overcame me, what pushed black vigor back into my veins, as soon as I felt those restrictions withdraw. I know it was relentless and desperately empty- a vortex, a vacuum- compelling me. Oblivion coursed and pulsed, and my will was gripped by the pull of the void, driving me to me feet before they could react and restrain me.

Too late, Ilya Feodorovich cried out. Too late, the Lieutenant lunged and cursed.

I had slipped them, and was well out from the shadows, rounding the corner and dropping onto the hard-packed snow of the open road, kneeling beneath the halo of the sullen moon. “Vanka!” I heard Grisha’s cry, panic melding with anger and dismay. They dared not follow me into the open and risk exposing themselves to detection.

Just as well. I could be alone with my girl.

She was panting soundlessly, her eyes fixed and glassy; unseeing, I thought, until I managed to utter her name, and she swung them around to look at me. I had never heard such pleading in my own voice, and I hope never to hear it again. For her sake, I crushed the threat of tears. Blood ran from her nose in twin streams that merged into one unendurable stripe. The visceral assault of copper and crimson, pushing into my senses, violating me. Things that should never have been inside me, and I could do nothing but take them, again and again.

It flowed and congealed, pooling like a terrible halo beneath her beautiful head, freezing into stunning red ice as it seeped into the unseen, minute cracks of the deceptively solid snow.

“Everything is okay, it's normal,” I murmured, but it wasn’t ok. It wasn’t normal. I lied, because I had no other choice. I wasn’t sure if I hoped she believed me or not.

One thing was foremost in the rubble of my mind- the notion that no matter how devastated and terrorized I was, it was a hundred times worse for her. I couldn’t bear the thought of compounding her distress by inflicting my selfish despair. That realization alone was enough to keep me from falling apart. She needed my voice, my reassurance. Knowing that I could suffer later. That was what kept me from losing cohesion.

My fingers touched her, stroking the fur of her cheek and brow. I couldn’t bring myself to touch her poor, trembling body, for fear that I would hurt her, not knowing the extent of the damage. Her eyes sought me as I shifted, wildly. She thought I was leaving her.

“Nyet, ei,” I whispered, a senseless mélange of Russian and Suomenkieli, hoping she would understand one or the other. “Mina Koira, moya krasivaya devushka. Eto narmani, olet kiva.”

All is good.

My words would choke me, soon, I thought, and I would die too, with my tongue thick and tripping over such powerless utterances, watching her life slip through my hands and into the cold neutrality of the snow. Intoning adjacent words, one after another- litanies of love and loss, spilling from blue and unfeeling lips. Her breathing was shallow, and she no longer turned her eyes when I crooned her name.

I was losing her.

My shoulders shook, but there was nothing for it. I wished that I could lie down with her, that I could leave with her.

“You,” snarled a deep, harsh voice, alien to my ears, and yet somehow there was no mistaking its owner. Major Volgin, of the sadistic repute and punishing fists. I hadn’t heard his approach, but I knew he towered over me, stark and unyielding as a graven god.

Volgin had been surprisingly quiet until now, saying nothing as the shot occurred, watching silently as Lieutenant Ryeshkev had fought to keep me back and the men had immobilized me. But enough was enough, apparently. If Lieutenant Ryeshkev couldn’t wrangle his soldier’s hysteria into meek obeisance, then he would take it upon himself, and God help the poor bastard.

“Explain yourself,” he thundered.

I didn’t care about him; nothing could tear me from Koira.

“Soldier!” He barked. “Get back to your unit on the double!”

“Ivan,” Grisha’s voice now, begging, not even asking. He was technically subordinate to Volgin, so he could do little once I had incurred the Major’s Goliathian wrath.

Volgin was already legendary for his unorthodox talents, and unusual willingness to indulge in bare-handed cruelty. I can understand, now, what Lt. Ryeshkev must have feared for me, in those moments. Volgin could have killed me outright without raising a hair on Khruschev’s knuckle.

“Vanka,” Grisha snapped, in a way uncustomary for him. “Come away from there at once!”

I heard the urgency in his voice, and my heart went out to him. I wanted to run to Grisha, my commander, my bratan, and bury my head in his lapel. But she breathed, still. And as long as she breathed, I would not leave her.

“Raikov!” I heard Ryeshkev’s voice once more, strained, strident. “May God fuck you if you don’t get up right now!”

Volgin was looming over me, his shadow like that of a colossal monument. I heard the click of a hammer being cocked. “Get off your knees, soldier. Get up, or I’ll shoot you,” is what he said to me. And I looked up at him, and his face was not unkind, though it was arresting enough to cut straight through the blur of my swimming eyes.

I stared, and responded, mutely, pushing myself up off the snow, staggering a little as I did so. I caught myself, cursing the blurring glint that threatened my vision. Saltwater like brine.

Volgin’s frown was impossibly etched, a carved, stony expression, like a grimacing statue. “Get into line, soldier. Kuwabara, Kuwabara.”

I shuddered. He reached out, and I narrowed my eyes, pulling back instinctively, as his hand enclosed me, settling over my arm.

“Ostyn’,” Volgin grunted, softly. “Panimayish?"

I nodded, slowly, without meeting his gaze. “Poinyal,” I managed, my voice sounding disturbingly, upsettingly sane.

“Shast,” said Grisha, breathlessly, from the shadows. “Listen.”

Volgin lifted a hand, and stilled everyone where they were. Our entire company froze at the sound of crunching gravel and tuneless whistling. And I realized who it was.

The man, the dog-killer, coming into the clearing. No doubt looking for his noble prize of cold dead meat and limp, unloving fur. A useless trophy of vindication. My Koira. My baby girl, now forever irretrievable to my warm, devoted hands.

He was an ugly man.

I say this, of course, knowing that he would have looked so to me anyway, but I took a cold satisfaction in that hideously unpleasant face. He exemplified the worst traits of his sallow countrymen; moon-faced and potato-nosed, pale as a cabbageworm, with cheeks burned permanently red from drink and lips that no sane woman would deign to grace with even the most charitable of kisses.

“Hold steady,” I heard Ryeshkev hiss beneath his breath, and I knew that we were to stay concealed and let him pass on his merry way, to go about his dog-slaughtering business and home to a nice dinner of fish soup. From the Lieutenant’s perspective, we could not risk allowing ourselves to be seen, even by a drunk dog-killer on a river bridge. We were, after all, no longer in Porkkala. The occupation had ended.

Volgin and I were scarcely out of his visual range, concealed by nothing but darkness. “Stay put,” he rumbled, low in his throat. “Do you hear me?”

I heard him, but I can’t begin to express how little I cared. I think he suspected, because he repeated himself, through gritted teeth, lower in tone, as the cheerful murderer ambled into our vicinity.

“I hear you,” I said, softly. “Yes, sir. I have excellent hearing.”

My heart was horrifically full of love. That sounds impossible, I know, but love is a deceptive emotion. Love displaced grows cancerous and black. All my emotions for her were left suddenly bereft, and there was nowhere to lay them down. Like arms, they became heavy and onerous; I could feel them crushing me from the inside out.

Love with no recourse will poison you.

The man was close, now, peering over my little devushka’s broken body like a scavenger, a pestilent magpie. His shotgun rested carelessly on his shoulder. Why should he be vigilant? He had nothing to fear, after all. There was no mercenary huntsman in the darkness waiting to slaughter him.

It wasn’t a decision, so much as an inevitable course of action. I pulled out my gun and shot him.

And shot him.

Not in the head. This wasn’t about dying. It was about Koira, and suffering.

The man looked astounded, uncertain, as they so often do- as if he couldn’t quite grasp what had happened to him. His fingers curled gingerly over the wounds in his chest, as the red flowers of death bloomed ever outward. He reached a hand toward me, squinting in uncertainty. Or in pain. It may have been.

“Oletko…oletko venäläinen?” he gasped, blood flecking the corners of his mouth.

“Kylla,” I spat. “Olen koiran venäläinen, mutta olet kuollut suomalainen.”

Lisak might have corrected my grammar, had he been there. It was by no means perfect, and my pronunciation and stress were irretrievably Russian, lamentable, third-syllable emphasis, I’m sure, but I like to think the dogman was able to isolate my meaning. And if not, the Makarov I leveled at him spoke with a fairly universal voice.

I kicked him onto his back, onto the snow, and I straddled him, bracing my knee on his chest. My eyes were cold and unresponsive. His were wide and distraught. I watched him all the while, gasping like a banked perch. After a moment I slowly righted my gun. I pressed the barrel right into his mind’s eye, and squeezed the trigger.

The shot rang out; louder somehow than the ones before it, louder even than the one that destroyed my world.

The wreck of a man is not unlike the wreck of a ship, except that elemental fluids drown one vessel and drain from the other. I had no desire to see more wreckage. I still had the rubble of my mind to pick through. I closed my eyes without misgivings, as I rose from my morbid pose atop the dog-killer’s cooling corpse.

I holstered the gun with a hand that shook, but it wasn’t an affliction born of guilt or moral regret. I don’t know why I trembled after the fact of the killing. Perhaps because it was the first. I turned around, and opened my eyes, only to find myself face to face with Volgin.

“That was rash,” he told me, seizing my lapel in his massive fist.

I gazed up at him, stonily. He seemed surprised, almost amused, when I did not flinch, or react in any way. It was not because of any particular stoicism. My emotions were well and thoroughly tapped, and there would be no apostolary borrowing. I refused to release an inch of my grief in the service of fear. This man, however immense and electric, was not worthy of stealing Koira’s devotion. “Yes, sir,” I said.

“Major,” he said, more slowly.

“Major, sir.”

“Rash,” he murmured, “and yet cold-blooded. How is that?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

I don’t think he was actually speaking to me, so much as himself, but I answered him in any case. Expecting the worst, but hardly caring, I waited for the inevitable backlash.

However, Volgin didn’t respond as I thought he might in the face of such insolent presumption. He nodded, after a moment, looking over my face with an unsettling intensity, an odd light in his steel grey eyes.

“As you were,” he pronounced, with a grim smile. His fingers abruptly released my collar and I reacted swiftly, stepping back to regain my balance. There I stood, in the masochistic glow of my freshly minted emptiness, oblivion in a man, looking up at a colossus, a glacier; immovable, enduring.

Volgin grunted. “Huh.” He turned toward the men, who stood silent and deferent along the deep snow of the roadside. “Take the dog and bury it,” he ordered, and a group of men rushed to lift Koira from the frozen ground.

I looked away.

“She’s already gone,” he told me, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I was surprised- not only by the gesture, but the weight of that single massive appendage. I had realized vaguely that he was a big man, but now I felt the potential of that realization. Just the slightest squeeze of his fingers was enough of a hint to suggest the sheer merciless strength contained and pulsing just beneath, at his disposal if he so chose.

Grisha was hovering in the periphery, hands on his hips, looking as anxious as I’d ever seen him, his drowsy eyes focused and intent. Somehow he seemed hesitant to bypass the Major, as if he were a troll-cursed bridge, or something equally inauspicious.

Volgin strode around to where the dog killer lay, looking down at him with the detached and transient interest reserved for pocket lint and bits of crumpled paper. The dog killer didn’t move, not even a twitch. I had done it right.

“What did you say to him?” Volgin asked me curiously, casually nudging the corpse with his immense red boot.

I tossed my head to sweep the hair from my eyes, and noticed how he watched me when I did. “Sir, he asked if I was Russian, Sir. I told him yes, I am a Russian dog. But you are a dead Finn.”

Volgin chuckled. "Vicious little bastard, aren’t you.”

Grisha came forward, pulling me back, mindfully, slowly, into his physical influence. “It’s done, Ivan,” he said, smoothly. “Come back with us, now, comrade." I could see his guarded expression, implicit in his overcast eyes. Grigorii Ilyavich, my infallible Roman-eyed mentor, was concerned about me. I wondered why.

Volgin chuckled. "Huh. Go on. Obey your commander, Raikov. It’s good practice for the next one." He paused, as a dark smile cracked across his carved features. "After all, you never know who you might...wind up under.”

Ryeshkev frowned, slowly. “We need to get moving. We have an extraction point to make.”

Volgin may have addressed his reply to Grisha, but made no effort to downplay the way his eyes raked over me. “Indeed, Lieutenant. Indeed.”


	23. Chapter 23

_Here is the one here is the one here is the one mistake that can not be made_  
_There is a line that is crossed over once, and only once let it be said_  
_All of the hubris clenched in our fist won't punch our way out of here_  
_You know what I've told and I tell but you won't let it pass into your ears_

(Grant Lee Phillips)

 

 

Ocelot stared for a long moment, tapping his fingers restlessly on the back of his hand. They felt blunted and soft, kid leather abutting itself in muffled futility. His kinetic unease was not due to the usual suspects, which were boredom, malaise and general discontent. It was a more localized distress, mild and unwelcome. Empathy, he thought grimly. No sense gilding the lily about it. He frowned, looking down at the immaculate seams of his gloves, feeling his expression intensify as he picked out the uniformity of each tiny stitch.

“So there you have it,” Raikov said quietly. “The end of what history calls the Porkkala Parenthesis.”

He was nodding reflexively in reply, venturing nothing, knowing his thoughts were already betrayed on his face, if Raikov cared to look up. The snow had blotted the sky into oblivion, and Ocelot was suddenly acutely aware that encompassing whiteness was no less blinding than utter dark. Certainly no less disorienting.

 _Old man Vodka_ , he thought. _That’s where your disorientation comes from._

“Are you all right?” he asked, abruptly. Inwardly he mocked himself for the pat nature of the question, for asking the question at all. He knew the mantra: had intoned it, internalized it. So long as they both did what had to be done, there was no need to question anything.

“Of course,” said Raikov readily, and it didn’t sound forced or feigned. “It was a long time ago. I just hadn’t thought of it so...concretely for...some time.”

Ocelot sighed, gently tracing the outline of the gun at his waist, easing over its unforgiving contours with a gloved fingertip. There wasn’t much one could say until the allotted grace period of basic tact elapsed and allowed him to demand answers to all the issues raised by the revelation. “Volgin surprised you,” he muttered. “That’s all.”

“Nobler in the mind,” Raikov remarked, raising his glass carelessly. “Hardest on the heart and solar plexus. Casual anguish for everyday use.” He was faded, Ocelot noticed, a little weathered and feathered around the edges. His motions faltered slightly in commission; his clear grey eyes were hazed with the patina of drink. The soft blush of intoxication stained his lips and the chevrons of his high-boned cheeks. Raikov glanced down, idly, noticing the forgotten pattern of his fingers. “Pull out the guns, Adamska. You know I don’t mind.”

Ocelot scoffed at the suggestion, letting his hands drop. “I don’t need to something to play with, Major. I may be young, but I gave up tin soldiers a long time ago.”

Raikov looked almost sad at the statement. “Suit yourself. The offer stands, however.”

“Contrary to what you may think, I’m capable of carrying on a civil conversation without whipping out my gun. I just listened to your whole story without budging, Raikov. What more do you want?”

Ivan shook his head to signify ‘nothing’, gracefully dismissing the statement. “So you’ve listened. So now you know about Porkkala. Still hate me?” he asked, wearily.

“No,” said Ocelot. “And it was never a question of hate. You know that.”

The Major nodded, then tipped his glass casually, looking intently into the shallow liquid as if he were reading tea leaves. “Are you satisfied?” he asked, and there was a pointed aspect to the inquiry. Ocelot knew it was an invitation for him to ask the questions that needed to be asked. Raikov was leaving the door open.

Ocelot sighed, pulling off his beret and running his fingers back through the softly waxed forest of his hair. It sprung up behind his touch with the resilience of grass. “So that was it, then? You and Volgin were inseparable from that day forward.”

Pausing mid-drink, Raikov’s eyes widened. He shook his head, setting his glass down on the unblemished tabletop. “Is that what you think? No, comrade, it wasn’t like that. I didn’t see Volgin again for years. Though I heard a number of things, as you might imagine.” He looked up, meeting Ocelot’s gaze at last, as if he were determined to impart this, above all else. “I returned to Russia and was sent to Yekaterinburg for debriefing by the KGB, which was largely uneventful. Then, lo and behold, I was re-contacted by my childhood benefactors, our beloved Philosophers, the very ones who had tucked me down to sleep in the KGB to begin with. The decision had been made to reactivate me. Upon review of my assets, the suggestion was made.”

“The Suggestion?” It sounded like a word that held an unseasonably ominous connotation in reserve.

“To augment my resumé,” Raikov answered, wryly. “To capitalize on ‘an observed natural aptitude’, I believe they put it. For the next three years, I was educated on the finer points of ‘man’s ruin’.” He smiled listlessly, and gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. “By twenty, I was what they call a Raven.”

Ocelot laughed. “A Raven. Isn’t that just charming.”

“That’s the idea,” said Raikov, leaning his head on his hand. Suddenly his voice was dulcet with fatigue. “Seduction,” he mumbled, yawning.

The smile that crept reluctantly onto Ocelot’s face was only allowed to linger while Raikov’s eyes were closed. “So how did you come to be Thunderbolt’s lover?” he pressed, reaching out, poking Raikov gently in the forehead with the business end of a finger gun.

The Major roused himself, shaking his head vigorously. He ran his hands over his face and looked up once more, smiling with forced radiance. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Don’t shoot.”

“Tell me what I want to know.” Ocelot cocked his hand menacingly, and gave Raikov a narrow-eyed smile.

Raikov poured and polished off the bottle, tossing the last glass back with offhand aplomb. “I ran a few dozen flash infiltrations in Moscow, for practice. But it wasn’t what they groomed me for. They had a special objective in mind.”

“Volgin,” said Ocelot, without hesitation.

Raikov gave him the finger guns, this time, returning his own gesture. “Bang. You are clever, Adamska. Yes, my first long-term assignment was here, at Groznyj Grad. I was well in place before I even knew of your sympathetic affiliation. I must admit, when I learned you were my co-operative, it was a surprise.”

“I didn’t know about you, either,” said Ocelot, but it was a lie. He’d learned who his counterpart was, even before the official Codec call that confirmed it. “They’re good at keeping the deck stacked and out of sight.”

Letting his head fall back against the chair, Raikov lounged indolently, gazing off into space.“When I realized who the Patriots’ target was, I knew my task would be easy. I allowed myself to be recruited into GRU, and sought Volgin’s proximity. He remembered me at once- not that I was entirely surprised. Before we parted company, Grisha had intimated that Volgin intended to watch my dossier. He meant it as a warning, I’m sure, but it turned out to be a valuable piece of HUMINT in my pursuit. Armed with the knowledge that Volgin had been keeping an wolf’s eye on my whereabouts all this time, I felt confident in my assignment.”

“He must have been happy to see you,” remarked Ocelot, with a snort. “What, did he just fuck you right then and there?”

Raikov gave him an inebriated but baleful look. “There was some preamble.”

“Do tell.”

“Now you’re just being prurient.”

“Maybe.”

Raikov sighed. "If you must know, Volgin called me to his quarters the day I arrived. He looked exactly as he does now, but that was different than what I remembered from Siuntio. More sharply rendered, maybe. Certainly broader, stronger. Even more powerful. A man in his prime.”

“Don’t forget the scars,” added Ocelot. “That’s always fetching.”

“I’d been briefed on what to expect,” Raikov drawled lazily, with a dismissive tilt of his head. “I actually find them rather aesthetic, if you really want to know the truth.”

Ocelot scowled, realizing that he didn’t.

Raikov let his eyes half-close, sinking deeper into the chair. “Should I go on?”

Ocelot said nothing, and Raikov smiled slightly. “There I was, holding salute. He immediately ordered me at ease.

‘I remember you,’ he said. He didn’t need to say from where. ‘Do you remember me, Ivan Raidenovich?’

‘I couldn’t forget you, sir,’ I said.

‘Yevgeny Borisovich,’ he told me. ‘Let’s not stand on ceremony.’

‘I have an uncle Yevgeny,’ I said. ‘He’s a singer at the Bolshoi House.’

‘Huh,’ grunted Volgin. ‘That’s something.’

‘Yes, something.’

‘So how is it you’re a soldier?’

I told him I was a dancer before GRU recruited me, a principal prospect of the Bolshoi Ballet. That I was merely doing my mandatory service in the regular army. That I'd had every intention of going back. But it didn’t turn out that way.

‘A dancer, eh?’ It was clear that he approved, and the way he looked me over left no doubt in my mind. ‘You'd need an incredible physique for that. Strong and…flexible. Good physical tolerance.”

‘I have a very high threshold for pain, sir,’ I told him. ‘And sustained exertion. And I am quite flexible, in more than one way."

Volgin looked indecently pleased to hear that, so I made my move.

‘I’ve trained for many years,’ I said. ‘Here, let me show you.’ I took his hand and put it on my hip, then moved it down my thigh, so he could feel the muscles there.

He was surprised, at first. I could tell by the way his eyes narrowed. But it wasn’t reticence. ‘So we’re clear…’ he said, leaning in. He asked if I wanted to be Major Raikov to him, or if I wanted to be Ivan.

I told him I would answer to anything behind closed doors.

He smiled. It was the first time I saw ever saw him smile. Then he said ‘Ivan,’ and ran his hand over my cock. And I looked him in the eye. ‘Yes,’ I told him, and I squeezed his hand under mine. ‘To both your questions.’ ”

There was a silence.

“Well, that’s just great,” muttered Ocelot.

Amusement touched the Major’s hazy eyes. “You didn’t really want to know, did you? Why’d you ask?”

“I was ignorant about your tradecraft,” Ocelot said, scowling. “So let’s chalk it up to Intel and leave it at that.”

Raikov shrugged. “I had expected Volgin to mistrust me more, to question my words, but he didn’t.”

“Blind,” snorted Ocelot. “When it comes to you, he sees what he wants to. He wouldn’t read betrayal on you unless it was tattooed on your back in Braille.”

“I suppose not.” Again, Raikov sounded almost sad.

“Were you a dancer?” Ocelot asked. "Or was that just backstory?”

“Actually, I was a gymnast.” He reclined with the warm, boneless grace of intoxication, looking distantly wistful. “I was intended to be famous, an Olympian. That was Patriots’ initial plan for me. To tour America, the world, all under the auspices of the KGB. Charm school and gymnastic training comprised all of my days and nights.”

“Were you good enough?”

Raikov looked past him, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Yes,” he said. “I was.”

Ocelot nodded, unsurprised to hear it. Raikov’s physicality suggested something that had been shaped for a purpose; muscles symmetrical, equalized and defined. It was deceptive, what lay beneath that uniform. His casual grace suggested leanness, but while he was lithe, he wasn’t slender. In fact, he was strapping, and rather muscular. Which stood to reason, thought Ocelot. He would probably have believed Raikov if he had claimed to be a former dance prodigy from the Bolshoi School, but now that he thought about it, the shoulders were too pronounced, the chest…

Ocelot shook his head, astonished by his own mind.

He looked up, wondering if he should say something, offer some absolution, some kind of token in assurance of his continued trust. Ivan was leaning forward with his head bowed, elbows resting on his knees. His blond hair curtained his profile; artful, disheveled, the color of white gold. Ocelot knew he wasn’t totally out of his cups, but Raikov looked dead drunk. He glanced at the table where the empty bottle sat, innocently dark and defunct, like the windows of a closed shop. Not available for comment.

“Raikov.” A stir, a somnolent eye cast upward between the pale, luxuriant strands. Ocelot was tempted to brush them away, expose the whole of his face, like an archaeologist uncovers the greater beauty of a fragment. A gentle sweep around the edges, so as not to disturb him where he lay. “Raikov. You’re done for. Come on, get up.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.” The Major rose from his chair, seemingly composed, if a little unsteady.

“Don’t be sorry,” said Ocelot. He stood up, trying to gauge whether he’d been mistaken. Unthinkable as it seemed, perhaps Raikov was just overwrought. It hadn’t been an easy story to hear, much less impart, and he’d been clearly traumatized by the cavalier way in which Volgin had invoked its ghost into his waking life, dredging it up from their ephemeral past and putting it on open display. Whatever the Colonel’s intentions, Raikov hadn’t looked endeared. He’d looked haunted.

Raikov tossed his head back to slip his cap on, but quickly lost his equilibrium, swaying, and staggering forward. Ocelot caught him without thinking, bracing his hands against the Major’s chest to arrest his momentum, then slipping them beneath his arms to hold him upright. “Easy, Major."

“Not that easy,” said Raikov, with a laugh.

Cursing, Ocelot urged Raikov’s listless form to move with him, as he stepped backward, avoiding the few obstacles that loomed in his hindsight. The Major was like a great, ungainly doll in his arms, a toy soldier on the grandest scale. His head was tilted to one side, his blond hair softly luminous in the low light, cascading over his shoulder like a weeping willow. His full lips were slightly parted, perfectly formed, as if molded around the Madonna’s own nipple. Or maybe the Devil’s, thought Ocelot, irreverently. Persevering, he coaxed Raikov’s kinesthetic complicity, guiding him to the corner of the room, and swinging him around bodily so that his back was to the bed.

“What are you doing, comrade?” asked Raikov, idly grasping a handful of his red scarf, his fingers weak and insensate.

Ocelot smirked, pressing down firmly on the structured shoulders of the Major’s uniform jacket, persuading him to sink down onto the edge of the mattress. One end of the scarf pulled free, and Ocelot uttered a noise of irked dismissal as he yanked it from his neck. Raikov leaned back, half reposed on his hand, and half upright, regarding Ocelot with curious languor.

“Lie back,” Ocelot said, firmly.

This statement elicited a surprised, if slightly dulled response from Raikov; a leisurely lift of his eyebrows, and an uneven smile. “Not unless you intend to compromise me.”

“You’re already compromised, Raikov. The bottle beat me to the punch.”

Raikov shook his head, rubbing his brow. “I’m not that bad off. Just give me a minute.”

“Don’t like being out of control, do you, Voronka? I can tell it’s killing you not to have your faculties intact. Guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

“You don’t get it, Ocelot,” muttered Raikov. “I can’t just lie down here…” He drifted off, looking vaguely troubled, but unable to collect his thoughts enough to pursue them.

“Sure you can, Major,” Ocelot said flatly, grasping his boots and lifting his legs up onto the bed. “See how easy that was? Now just lie back and sleep yourself sober.”

Raikov shifted, making an effort to sit up. Ocelot could see his stomach muscles engage, his physicality strong and responsive, even though his coordination was decidedly impeded. Ocelot narrowed his eyes, and before his prey could manage to rise, he moved forward, alighting atop Raikov and caging his half reclined body. “I don’t think so, Major. You’re walking wounded.” He smirked. “You’ll just have to go along with me on this one.”

Though technically he was straddling Raikov, Ocelot took care with the proximity of their bodies, making sure they were sexually misaligned. He was sullen at the realization that he was getting hard anyway.

“Just think, Adamska,” Raikov mumbled. “If you’d only let me have that kiss, we’d be having slow, lazy, drunken sex right now.”

That was the last thing that Ocelot wanted to think about, pressed against Raikov’s reclined and languid form. However, while his mind fought to renounce the words, his body struggled to endorse the idea, shooting coy sensory tendrils spiraling downward through his thighs.

Ocelot pushed aside the impact of the Major’s blunt and provocative words. “You could have kissed me by now, Raikov,” he said, coolly. “Not even going to try?”

The Major shook his head, slowly. “No.”

“Lie down, Raikov.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a wreck, that’s why.”

Ivan laughed, softly, rubbing his temples. “Then let me be a wreck.”

“I don’t care if your head falls off. Just lie down.”

“Go back to your quarters.”

Ocelot scowled. “You’re in my quarters. And you’re my counterpart, and as far as that goes, my responsibility.”

Raikov gazed up at him from beneath half-lidded eyes. “Then help me back to my quarters, comrade."

Ocelot shook his head. “Sorry, Ivan Raidenovich. I’m not going to leave you alone in this state. It would be contraindicated. Against protocol. Volgin wouldn’t like it, and more importantly, the Philosophers wouldn’t like it.” He eased Raikov back firmly, hand on his chest.

“Are you going to stay?

“They are my quarters.”

Raikov's head fell to the side. “Listen,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “I can’t…” He fell silent, his lips easing into restful stasis, his muscles gradually falling slack, relaxing into the bed.

Ocelot felt a warm sensation creeping over him, sensuous and nodding like laudanum, watching Raikov gradually succumb to the inevitable. “What were you saying?”

No reply was forthcoming, but Raikov smiled dreamily and shook his head, like it didn’t matter.

Ocelot leaned forward, emboldened by Raikov’s apparent oblivion, searching for signs of cohesion. He was closer than he’d ever been to his counterpart, now, unless you counted the transient brushing of lips he’d grudgingly enacted at Raikov’s request, and they differed on that score-Ocelot thought it counted, Raikov obviously didn’t.

That seemed like a fever dream, now. Looking at the lush, seraphic curves of Raikov’s mouth, it was hard to imagine that he’d actually grazed them with his own. That he'd done something so reckless.

“Adamska." Even half-comatose, his voice sounded coy.

Ocelot was acutely conscious of their proximity. While it wasn’t indecent, neither was it innocent. It was harmless, however. Raikov was neutralized, disarmed; his treacherous tradecraft no threat to himself or others. Satisfied with this, he let himself indulge his curiosity, investigating Raikov's chemistry. This close, he was suffused by sultry warmth and contraband Parisian cologne and the clean burning scent of liquor, and something more, and more ineffable, the distinctly pleasant tincture of Raikov himself- his flesh, his male animal, his tangible person.

The bed creaked, a soft protest of whickering iron as he shifted forward. It was a fleeting thought, the intrusive vision that struck his mind at that sound, of a cacophonous symphony of like noises, a litany to accompany an unstructured choreography of skin against skin, unfixed, encompassing, shifting.

Falling, roaming, touching, enduring. Like the snow. Melting.

It was against his better judgment. “Vanya.” Ocelot let the word fall from his lips like soft snow, alighting on Raikov’s cheek with the touch of his breath.

The Major was out.

He frowned down at Raikov’s motionless form, warm and pliant beneath him, deep in a chemical slumber, submerged in black water. There was nothing to animate him, only the steady flow and ebb of breath in his chest. Ocelot lingered, vaguely conscious of the notion that he could observe Raikov in a state of nature, without having to guard for his manipulations. Here was a majestic but dangerous beast; tranquilized, unthreatening. His treacherous eyes were closed benignly, his face an enigmatic mask, but for once it was the blissful impassivity of sleep, not icy indifference. Ocelot could observe this man's beauty, without resenting it.

Ocelot hadn’t even finished the thought before he was slipping off his glove, pressing his fingers against the Major’s sleeping cheek. Raikov’s skin was immaculate, like fine vellum. He immediately felt guilty for touching it. As if he might leave fingerprints, or blood, or gunpowder smudges.

He slid his fingers past Raikov’s temple and into the glossy blond mane that was his crowning glory; smooth and pale, milk and silk. He found it soft as he'd expected, but thicker and stronger than it looked, much to his surprise. He resisted the urge to wrap it around his fist, to clutch it, to bury his face in the long strands and breathe him in like a cigarette.

The knock on the door was sharp and sudden, like a gunshot. “Major.”

Ocelot turned, sliding immediately to his feet with instinctive prescience.

Volgin.

Ocelot’s eyes narrowed, and he looked at Raikov, sprawled indelicately on his bed. What the hell was Volgin doing here? Hadn’t he left? Hadn’t Raikov gotten rid of him?

Frowning, he snatched his errant beret from the chair, pulling it over his head. Because there was nothing else to do, he opened the door. “Colonel," he said, moderately.

“I came for Major Raikov,” was Volgin’s laconic reply, as he sauntered past Ocelot.

Ocelot’s brows knitted surreptitiously as he closed the door. He wasn’t sensing overt hostility from Volgin, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. At least Raikov’s uniform was fully intact. “He’s all yours,” scowled Ocelot, crossing his arms. “The bastard got plowed and passed out on my bed.”

Not the best choice of words, in retrospect, but Volgin seemed ambivalent. Ocelot kept his distance, deliberately, leaning against the wall, as if resuming what he’d been doing all along: staying the hell away from the Major Ivan Raidenovich Raikov.

Volgin bent to lift Raikov’s dormant form, hauling him upright and over his back, easily shouldering him like a sack of grain. “Huh,” he said. “Dead to the world.”

“I…should have monitored his alcohol intake, sir. I apologize.”

The Colonel grunted. “Don’t be stupid, Ocelot. Ivan does what he wants.”

“Apparently, sir,” muttered Ocelot, feeling his heart rate gradually returning to some semblance of normalcy.

Volgin nodded slowly. “Did you two get anywhere before he passed out?”

Ocelot’s brows shot into incredulous arches. “Pardon?”

Volgin gave him a withering look. “Did you two make any progress while I was gone?”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” Ocelot said, warily. “I didn’t even know you’d left.”

The Colonel frowned. “Ivan suggested I take a few hours to inspect Bolshaya Past Base. He told me he’d be with you in the meantime, ironing out your working relationship.”

“Oh, that. Yes, sir. Hence all the drinking.”

“A little social lubrication, eh Major?” Volgin snorted. “Well, whatever works.”

“Sir.” _Probably should have given me a heads up on this one, EVA,_ Ocelot thought, disagreeably.

That was a conversation that would have to wait. There were no vital signs from Raikov, not even a twitch. His head was pitched forward, hair obscuring his face like a drape of strung silk. “He sleeps like a marmot,” Volgin grunted, amused. He stood unaffected, despite having a full-grown man draped over his monumental shoulder.

“Marmots don’t drink vodka."

“He has a head for liquor,” the Colonel said, enigmatically. “But not restraint.”

Ocelot’s eyes narrowed as he watched Volgin stride to the door, one massive hand absently stroking Raikov’s wool-clad thigh. “Get some sleep, Ocelot,” Volgin grunted, on his way out. “You look disheveled.”

Left alone, Ocelot sank into a chair. He ripped off his beret and flung it on the table, rubbing his hands over his head and neck. Then he closed his eyes, leaning back, breathing deeply. There was no question.

Volgin should have been the thing he was thinking of, the thing that made him brood and drove him to paranoid extremes. Volgin was the dangerous element in this mission. Not ten seconds ago, he’d come very close to becoming a pillar of smoking ashes. Yet here he was, unable to shake off thoughts of Raikov.

He wondered which of his visitors had actually unsettled him more.

Ocelot smiled, in spite of himself. Raikov was a real piece of work; that much had always been undeniable. Clockwork, piecework, artwork, he would have said once, but not a study in human clay.

The Major’s façade had always been flawless; unblemished, blightless. Not that Ocelot hadn’t sought for faults in his wall- he had. He had crept along, running careful fingers over every inch, mindful of the need to know your ally’s Achillean failings as well as your own. Hour by hour spent spotting cracks in the luster had been unrewarding. Unenlightening.

But now, that careful assembled veneer had crumbled before his eyes, even as Raikov swept up the pieces and pressed them back into place, his skill with matching edges unparalleled, so that it looked whole and harmonized once more. It had been such a small thing, an insignificant shedding of sand- an unnoticeable corner of a painting losing fine chips of tempera like scattered snow.

The damage was minimal, the revelation immense.

Raikov was no heartless tsarevich carved from Siberian ice; nor was he lacquered in diamond. His composure could be broken, like a billiard set, like a phalanx of roman guards in tight shield formation, compromised by the launch of a catapult. Not vanquished, but vulnerable.

It shouldn’t have pleased him as much as it did.


	24. Chapter 24

_This story is past tense_  
_and I did not want my cover blown_  
_Thought well enough was left alone_  
_And who decided you'd rescue me?_  
_Yeah, I do agree_  
_a bent and broken set are we_

(Michael Penn)

 

 

It was simple in the concrete. A turn of the key, and he was admitted. In the abstract, it held more elusive associations.

It was a territory theoretically verboten to all but Volgin, and yet somehow Ocelot had always gotten the distinct feeling his intrusion would be more than welcome. Except at maybe this particular moment.

The room was warm and dormant, its somnolent atmosphere intact, undisturbed by his presence. Raikov’s shape was clearly visible under the blanket, embossed in moss green wool. He had lashed out diagonally, long, strong limbs extended, covering the widest possible mattress territory. _Selfish, entitled, demanding_ , thought Ocelot cynically, flipping his gun. _Even when he's asleep._

It stood to reason. One more strike against giving Raikov what he wanted. “Ivan Raidenovich,” he intoned, “Open your bloodshot come-hither eyes.” Ocelot sauntered around the bed, taking stock of Raikov’s incapacitation. Only the bright crown of his head was visible. The Major remained resolutely motionless, covers drawn up around his head and locking out the light. Not that there was much of that left. Ocelot glanced at the darkening windows, giving his gun a little spin. “I’ve come to wake you, comrade, and pour you into uniform."

“I invite you to go off and die in the woods,” muttered Raikov, from beneath the edge of the bedclothes. His enunciation was impressive considering his prone position.

Ocelot perched casually on the arm of the leatherette chair. “Sorry, Major. Can't do it.”

Raikov made a sound of indeterminate nature, but abject displeasure. “ _Katori chas? _”__ he ventured, thickly, after some time.

“It’s three PM.”

“What?” said Raikov, raising his head abruptly. “Why the hell didn’t you wake me up?” He had been sleeping on his face, stone-cold gone and unstirring since last night, by Ocelot’s assessment. There were imprints in his skin. Lines from the rumpled linens were scored into one cheek, mimicking Volgin’s more visceral scars, like an unintentional homage to the missing Colonel. A toast to absent friends, thought Ocelot wryly.

Raikov moaned and dragged himself upright. He moved with the weight of a chained man, his body stiff and unresponsive after spending the night in an immobilized freefall, bracing for a nonexistent impact. He looked ashen, he looked wasted. He looked immensely regretful.

He still looked pretty good.

Ocelot tilted his head, letting a frown cross his lips as he idly examined the sightline of his gun. Eventually he looked up. His eyes traveled up and down Raikov’s struggling form. “Need a hand?”

“I’m favorable,” managed Raikov, in a clipped, pressed tone. He paused, rubbing his brow for a moment. His hair hung around his face in soft disarray, brushing the strong domes of his bared shoulders. “Where is he?” he said, looking at the door as if he expected an imminent darkening.

Ocelot smiled, leaning against the chair back. “Relax, Major. I took care of things.”

“What does that mean?” said Raikov, sounding wholly disenchanted.

“Volgin’s gone. He left for Groznyj Grad this morning. Didn’t want to wake you,” he said, coolly, raising an eyebrow. “But he left the key with me, with orders to check in on you now and then.”

Raikov stared. “Thanks."

“Don’t mention it.”

“Turn around,” Raikov informed him, without ceremony. “I’m getting up.”

“Getting shy on me, Ivan Raidenovich?” he said. “After what happened last night?”

“Last night.”

Ocelot smiled wider.

Raikov closed his eyes. He looked ill, but beyond that, he looked extremely unsettled, to Ocelot’s vast delight. “What are you telling me, Ocelot?”

“So it’s ‘Ocelot’ now?” he remarked. “What happened to ‘Adamska’?”

There was a pause. “Did something happen?”

“You don’t remember?”

Ivan was silent.

Ocelot lifted his eyebrows. “That’s perfect,” he drawled, laughing softly. “I finally give you what you’re after, and you don’t remember a minute of it.”

Raikov looked incredulous, stricken. “I don’t believe you.”

“Believe me. You don’t remember falling onto my bed? Ripping each other’s uniforms off? Fucking like minks? Should I show you the bruises your fingers left?”

Raikov shuddered, and Ocelot was smug in the knowledge it wasn’t solely due to his hangover. “We couldn’t have. I wouldn’t have,” he added, with more conviction, touching his forehead and cringing slightly. “Not in that state. I’d never…it’s ingrained.”

“You give yourself a lot of credit, Raikov.”

“Or was I even conscious?”

Ocelot scowled fiercely, the game abruptly losing its appeal. “A lot more than you give me, apparently.”

Raikov stood up suddenly, reaching for his breeches, and Ocelot hastily raised his gaze to the safety of his face. A faint, wan smile creased the Major’s lips. “Nothing happened,” he said. “That proves it, Adamska."

He steadied himself on the iron headboard as he pulled on his pants and fastened them. It earned a grudging smile from Ocelot, a hard-won smirk. He gave Raikov a leisurely set of finger-guns, and spread his arms presentationally. “You’ve got me, Major,” he admitted. “But I had you going for a moment.”

“I’ll give you points for audacity. I wouldn’t have thought such things could cross your mind, much less pass your lips.”

Ocelot didn’t reply, finding his holster and letting his fingers graze his Makarovs once more. Raikov could just hold on to his perceptions. It was better that way, closer to the mantra, the way he’d laid it out. Taunting the truth was one thing. Confessing it was anathema.

“I like the way you tease. Too bad you’d rather fuck my brain than my body,” Raikov remarked, vaguely. He suddenly looked uneasy on his feet, his balance tenuous, as if he hadn’t reconnected with his equilibrium. He blinked, and his lips parted, his breathing uneven and feverish.

“You don’t look so favorable now, Raikov.” Ocelot stepped forward, frowning, ready to steady him if need be. “What’s the matter, Ivan Raidenovich? Is gravity winning?”

The Major turned unsteadily on his heels, crossing swiftly to the window. He forced the sash up with strength he didn’t actually have, borrowed from a state of urgency, and threw himself forward, leaning over the sill. Ocelot grimaced, realizing the impulse that had galvanized him, corroborated by Raikov’s violent heaving. He reluctantly turned his head, flinching at the miserable sound. It was unpleasant, but not unfamiliar. He was more disgusted with himself than the circumstances. In spite of his empathy, he found himself distracted. It was incongruous, that even in such a moment, he couldn’t help noting the artful definition of the muscles in the Major’s back, and the intricate way they jumped as spasms wracked him.

“Christ, Raikov,” he muttered, breaking his stance and going to his aid.

Ocelot had held not a few comrades’ heads over a bucket when they were too weak to do it themselves. He’d rolled them onto their sides when they passed out, so they wouldn’t choke on their own sick. Occasionally someone would even overindulge to the point of toxicity, and then it was a quick trip outside, and an unceremonious plunge into the cold, crusted snow and a vigorous barrage of blows to the back. As a treatment it was archaic and unpretentious, but its casual barbarism rarely failed to revive, in the absence of a medic. It was all part and parcel of the Russian liquid legacy; an inheritance of the long cold winters and dark, enduring skies. It was the obvious outgrowth of the human penchant for bottled warmth in the absence of all its physical forms.

Raikov was no different than any of those comrades, by definition. Surely the situation was no different. But there was something different in the way he approached the Major’s slumping form, the firm hand he slipped over that trembling shoulder. It wasn’t the same, and Ocelot knew it, even if Raikov didn’t. Ocelot glowered, but his voice didn’t reflect the expression. “I’ve got you, Major,” he intoned. “Don’t fight. Get it over with. You’ll feel better.”

Raikov’s head was bowed, his breath labored. He was resting, but the lingering tension in his body told Ocelot it wasn’t yet finished rebelling against his misdeeds. Frowning, Ocelot let his hands curve beneath Raikov’s cheeks and brow, carefully gathering all of his bright hair and holding it back from his face. “There,” he muttered. “Now you have nothing to worry about, pretty-boy.”

A choking retch, as Raikov’s body convulsed and pitched forward. Ocelot looked away, scowling. “Is that it?” he asked, when the movements had subsided, leaving Raikov limp and wrung out, draped over the open window like a beaten rug. Raikov nodded slowly, exhaling, the stress easing from his muscles. He lay inert, recovering, seemingly loath to move, despite the frigid wind assaulting his bare torso and chilling his skin. Ocelot knew the sense of relief he was feeling. He also knew that Raikov wasn’t thinking of anything but the sweet release of abrupt deliverance from wrenching nausea, wasn’t thinking about Ocelot, or the hands that still rested in his hair. Chances were it didn’t even register.

Given the opportunity to steal anything, Ocelot had little self-control. Moments and opportunities were no exception. Now that he felt it once more, soft and sleek in his palms, thoughts of the night before flooded his mind, and he wasn’t inclined to resist. His fingers caressed the pale strands, letting them drift through his fingers.

“That feels good,” whispered Raikov.

Ocelot smirked. So much for that theory, then. “Come out of there, comrade,” he said.

Another nod, more resolute, as Raikov gradually pushed himself back from the jamb. "It’s better. I’m fine.”

Ocelot withdrew his hands quickly, and turned away from him, closing the window with deliberate leisure. “Go take a shower, Raikov. Forget about getting into uniform.”

Raikov gave a brittle laugh. “And who will run the building?”

“I’ve got it covered.” The truth was that GRU’s assimilation of Graniny-Gorki was proving an easier transition than he’d ever expected. Probably because the bureau was used to being under the thumb of one agency or another, the government or the KGB, and little had changed but the scenery. Different motivations, perhaps, but the same predictable outcome; a captive lab, with a military presence. Granin rarely emerged from his office and the solace of his liquor cabinet, preferring to pickle himself at his desk, which was fine with Ocelot.

“Adamska.”

He turned, frowning. Raikov was looking at him, solemnly, the dark circles under his eyes doing little to detract from his intrinsic allure. “So now that I know what didn’t happen last night, is there anything I should know?”

Ocelot adjusted his gloves. “Not much to say about it, Major. You passed out on my bed. That was when Volgin showed up. He carried you back to your quarters.”

Raikov was silent. “I remember now,” he said, after a moment, closing his eyes. “I could only buy us a few hours alone.”

“To your credit, Raikov, you did try to warn me.”

Ivan smiled wearily. “At least he saved you the trouble of dragging me back.”

“Actually, he saved me the trouble of letting you stay.”

There was a pulse, a lapse, a skip in the universal record.

Raikov’s face betrayed nothing. “I’m sorry.”

Ocelot looked at him for a long time. “So am I."


	25. Chapter 25

_I sat beside the magic man  
And he laid some tricks for me  
He said you do need help, my friend  
I whispered, ‘obviously’.  
  
He laid a spread of Jacks and Queens  
And he bade me take my pick  
But every card played had your face  
I cried out, ‘I am sick’ _  
  
(Blue Öyster Cult)  
  
  
  
  
  
Ocelot had not lingered long after the cryptic, telling words left his mouth. Hadn’t even saluted, in his haste to remove himself, but did pause long enough to press a couple of pills into Raikov’s palm with a curt upward nod, indicating that he should take them.  
  
As the door closed behind Ocelot’s retreating form, he had looked down at his hand. At a glance he knew them to be Pentazemin.  
  
He was not unfamiliar with the small, chalk-blue pills, their sturdily embossed enigmatic ‘p’ crowning each nondescript tablet. He had taken Pentazemin on several occasions as a gymnast, and several more as Volgin’s personal acrobat. Or was it more accurate to call him his lovely assistant?  
  
_Watch, ladies and gentlemen, as he smiles and offers himself up on a plate._  
  
_Watch, as I saw him in half._  
  
_Oh, yes, you’ll hear him crying out, sir or madam, but believe me, it isn’t what it looks like. Not everything is what it seems._   _That’s how illusions work, after all. Now watch, and I’ll pull a dove from my sleeve, a flower from my cap, a fox from behind the ear of a midget._  
  
_Or maybe you’d prefer an Ocelot?_  
  
Ivan took the pills.  
  
They went down easily enough, and bloomed in his stomach like a mediocre orgasm, suffusing him with okayness. His headache receded like tide, but there was no swelling return. He felt grateful on the most absurdly physical level, that primitive, infantile place where intellectualism was useless. No amount of self-deceptive coaxing could will away the throbbing pain in his temples. Just as no amount of skillful persuasive reasoning could have convinced his body that it was ridiculous to be nauseous.  
  
No, it was Pentazemin and purgation that ruled the lowest corporeal kingdom of the self. A balm for your impulse. An antidote for primal anguish. Simple, physical, visceral. But effective. He felt better already. 

The top floor showers were reserved for senior-ranking Officers, of which there were only two in residence. It was unlikely he’d be seeing Major Ocelot for a while, so he had the place to himself.

Ivan stood motionless beneath the forceful spray, letting it batter his aching muscles. The pressure here was vastly superior to that provided by the high altitude pipes of Groznyj Grad. The water was hot, the way he liked it; just short of scalding, with a faint hint of sulfur underneath. One of the junior officers had mentioned something about natural hot springs, like the ones in Karlovy Vary. Rejuvenating mud.  
  
He bowed his head and let the water course over his hair, plastering it against his neck in sleek, pale curves, before he pushed it back and raised his face into the hard mist. It eased the last vestiges of clinging unpleasantness from his body, massaging his brow with pummeling jets, and he sighed, gratified, letting his palm rest against the tile.  
  
Ocelot. Well, there was something. There was always a moment when the air took a turn, but he had never felt a shift like this. Polarity pushing full circle, charging the very atmosphere. It resonated in the invisible spaces between them, every lacuna inverse and remade, once empty, now a vacuum.  
  
The uninvited feelings that stirred now were a part of that. And the touch, the touch…  
  
He shuddered, despite the heat of the water. Raikov knew he could draw it to his sensual memory, even now, the ghost sensation of Adamska’s fingers in his hair, the phantom weight of him above and pressing into the bed. Where before there had been idle, toying want, a cool and low-key ache, now there was actual need--physical, primal, unchecked. It made him uneasy. It made him…  
  
“ _Yebat’-kopat’_ ,” he cursed, hitting the wall softly with his palm.  
  
He closed his eyes as his hand slipped over the rise of his cock, swelling like a wave, returning like that absent tide, a headache deferred and redirected from blameful crown to sinful southern cross, transmuted from pain to pleasure. His fingers tightened, gripped. He worked himself over, roughly and without apology, braced against the cool wall and leaning into his pistoning fist.

_Immolate, and burn it clean. Then don’t stir the ashes._

Raikov’s cock ached, slickening with each bead of viscous pearl, stiffening with each merciless stroke. Taut and tensile, ready to give, ready to come for the one denied it. To spill liquid devotion before the invisible shrine of his sullen image. He seized himself with renewed intent, pushing toward release, the base of his hand slamming back down around the base of his cock with brutal, grinding friction. A single thought held more power. Fingers caught gently in his hair.  
  
Raikov came, hard, the force of sensation enough to send his weight lurching against his supporting hand, as his essence shot forth in a blissful shiver, arcing and mingling with the water that rained and swirled, carrying everything away into oblivion.  
  
It was both a blessing and a curse; the steam and heat, making him molten, minting this newly augmented desire. The water, to gradually wear away his resolve, while hiding the signs of the crime- couching each staggered, mounting, feverish breath in a trickling cascade of white sound, cleansing the milk of his lust from sight with relentless eternal motion; hypnotic, hydraulic.  
  
The evidence might be more elusive now, but it did not escape him.  
  
What had once been leisure had now become compulsion, and he had somehow missed the metamorphosis, the moment when he ceased to be detached, and instead became drawn. Now he could only watch in gentle dread as the truth unfurled, slyly emerging from its chrysalis and hovering before him, hectically bright with colors that screamed _touch at your own peril._  
  
_Touch, knowing you must, and know something else, while you’re at it,_ Voronka _._  
  
_Know that if you do, you’ll want to keep it. Not in the idle, amused way that Ravens collect silver spoons from unattended tables, but in a way that demands they be kept as well. Bound by an unseen string._  
  
Raikov sank back against the wall, shaking his head, stilling his breathing. In the aftermath, he was sated and pleasurably destroyed. His loins thrummed with the dulcet echoes of a soft, indecent glow. All for Major Ocelot, and his arctic charms. 

And yet, his traitorous mind whispered, it would be nothing, compared to having him.  
  
Raikov wasn’t enamored by this new dynamic. 

He wanted Adamska more than he should have. He wanted more from Adamska than he should have.  
  
Where was the fucking Pentazemin for that?


	26. Chapter 26

_Are you a boy, or are you a girl?  
With your long, blond hair…  
You look like a girl  
You may be a boy...  
You look like a girl_  
  
(The Barbarians)  
  
  
  
Chapter 26.  
  
  
  
The third day brought sunlight on snow, and introductions all round.  
  
Graniny-Gorki’s entire company was assembled in the front yard, soldiers and scientists alike, awaiting enlightenment, or at least anticipating something--requisite, if not relevant.  
  
Cigarettes passed unobtrusively between gloved hands. Soldiers squinted in the mid-afternoon glare and smoked, idly, in stasis. Some had removed their balaclavas and hung them carelessly over the muzzles of their rifles. They draped there, black and listless, looking like wilted cap-gun flags.  
  
The soldiers stood in a semi-arc, forming a casual perimeter around the captive labcoats, a mild but unmistakable reminder of their position.  
  
The soldiers looked bored.  
  
The scientists mostly looked cold. No one could accuse them of boredom.  
  
In general, word seemed to have spread across the ranks that the reforming officers sent from Groznyj Grad were not human monsters, nor were they particularly interested in the minutiae of day-to-day affairs. The consensus seemed to be that there were worse things than being gently rolled under the thumb of GRU.  
  
One of them, the flamboyant Major Ocelot, was already in attendance. His was a face known to most of the field men, a familiar figure with an unmistakable mechanic of body, obvious and distinct even now as he leaned against the pillar on the step, arms crossed and lips fixed. He was waiting coolly, keeping an eye on the gathered troops and their charges. Keeping another eye out for something else.  
  
“He’s a young guy, isn’t he,” remarked one of the soldiers, absently searching his pockets for a cigarette he’d rolled that morning and tucked in for later. Finding it, he pushed it into his mouth and set about locating a match.  
  
The man beside him shrugged, Kalashnikov slung casually over his young shoulder like a bag of oranges. “Twenty. That’s the rumor, anyway.”   
  
“I heard he was taken in by Volgin’s father.”  
  
“No shit? Adopted, you mean?”  
  
The other nodded. “Kind of a kid brother, yeah. Real touching.” He snorted, his opinion now made manifest, dispelling any remaining enigma surrounding the verbal sentiments.  
  
“ _Tak_ ,” said the second soldier, “I don’t suppose it was charity. He must have had something to recommend him.”  
  
The first chuckled softly as he struck the elusive match. “You seen him shoot?” he mumbled, pressing his lips forward and lighting the tip of the cigarette.  
  
“No,” came the vague reply. “But I’ve seen him handle them.”  
  
“He’s more than good.”  
  
“Granted.”  
  
Conversation trailed off as the Major’s gaze swept over their vicinity.  
  
The first soldier nudged the second once more. “Hey, Viorel Igorov,” he whispered. “What about the other one? The one who took a liking to Adrik?”  
  
“Raikov, was his name. Haven’t seen him since.”  
  
“I can’t believe they took him from you,” muttered the beige-headed young man, with the prominent nose that looked vaguely aristocratic. His name was Piotyr Pavlovich, but he went by Petosha. “He was _your_ dog.”  
  
Viorel was patient in replying, studiously watching for a lull in the Major’s scrutiny. It was simple self-preservation, not even conscious at this point. From what he’d witnessed on the first day, the Ocelot commander’s reactions were mercurial. It was only pragmatic to time one’s disobedience so that it coincided with distraction. The distraction came, as the soldier expected, at the arrival of the other Major.

Those unrelenting eyes of acute and sleepless blue were diverted, turned away from the company, and Viorel spoke smoothly and quietly into the lapse it bought. “It wasn’t like that, _chuvak_. They didn’t take him anywhere.” His friend passed him the dwindling stub of the cigarette and he paused, meditatively taking a drag. “And he’s safe, now that he’s in the Major’s charge. That’s more security than I could ever give him.”  
  
“I suppose,” Petosha muttered. “Still, who do they think they are?”  
  
“It’s not a matter of thought,” intoned the other, without philosophy. 

He was right, of course. It wasn’t anything. It simply was, like everything else.  
  
Major Ocelot was no longer watching the troop. His attention was fully on his fellow officer.  
  
It was safe to say all eyes were.  
  
“That’s him, then,” observed Petosha, curiously, pulling Viorel’s hand across to his lips and drawing in the last of the cigarette.  
  
“That’s him.” Viorel let the stump and ashes flutter to the snow, grinding it out for good measure with a heavily treaded sole.  
  
“Dear fucking mother,” muttered Petosha. “I always knew they’d find the lost Tsarevna.”


	27. Chapter 27

_Try,_  
_but you can't hide_  
_Impossible. You're lit from the inside_  
_And all I've got to do is_  
_keep my eyes above the ground_  
_to see you move around_  
  
(Michael Penn)  
  
  
  
  
  
  
There was nothing like a little changed air to turn a man’s perspective.  
  
Coupled with a crisp new uniform and sixteen hours of coma sleep, that man might well become a paragon of savoir-faire and a physical specimen par example. Or he might merely re-inhabit that state, like a favorite glove.  
  
“Raikov. Good of you to join me,” said Ocelot, as he approached. 

He gave Ocelot a leisurely salute, a cool smile, without fully meeting his eyes. "Comrade Major,” he acknowledged, with a tip of his jaw.  
  
“I was just about to educate them,” Ocelot said, with a wave of his gun. “But now that you’re here, maybe you’d like to brief the personnel.” He smirked. “You’re the diplomatic one, after all.”  
  
“Diplomacy? Is that what they’re calling it these days?”  
  
“What you do is a form of diplomacy."  
  
"You make it all sound so nice.”  
  
"Well, it's not all bad, is it, Ivan?" Ocelot smiled for a fraction of a second. “Speak, then,” he declared, stepping back, hands wide. His gun dangled artfully from his index finger for a moment, before he flicked his wrist and sent it spinning back into his grip. “They’re all ears,” he added, indicating the soldiers contemptuously.  
  
Raikov turned to the assembly, frowning speculatively as he looked them over.  
  
The soldiers were a decent crowd. Ocelot’s men, of course, looked the most mercenary and able, clad in their striking maroon berets and field blacks. That was hardly a revelation, he thought, wryly. Ocelot had been given the best raw materials, and he knew how to mold them.  
  
Still, the regular field army was hale and presentable, no slouching amongst them. The presence of the Ocelots was clearly noted and not appreciated by the standard unit. A little antagonism was good for morale, apparently. Certainly, the unpredictable x-factor of a little overt cross-hostility between uniformed comrades went a long way toward securing the scientists’ obedience.  
  
Raikov touched his ushanka briefly, edging it a little way up his brow. “I won’t take much of your time, or mine,” he said, abruptly, flashing a smile. “You know what your jobs are, I won’t presume to remind you. I just want to reiterate a few points of protocol, you know, for the sake of…continued harmony and glorious progress.”  
  
He eyed the scientists, tilting his head. Many of these wan and wilted men he knew, at least in passing, from their brief stint of internment at Groznyj Grad; however he’d have been hard-pressed to recall any specifics.  
  
“Whether or not you enjoy the idea, GRU is now in charge of this facility, and it is a militarized zone. As such, you are confined to a limited territory. You may have been informed of this,” he added, pleasantly. “However, judging from the mangled remains of some of your former colleagues, which were recently recovered from the woods, evidently not everyone took this admonition seriously. I hereby sincerely request that you do, comrades.”  
  
Ivan was good at this. Keeping his tone sagely impartial, infused with slight, sardonic humor and subterranean disdain. Just enough to make them understand that the man who stood before them was not as pretty on the inside, but that he was willing to pretend if they were. He spoke like a concerned friend, and for a moment, he might have even believed that he cared if these men were stupid enough to try and brave the Tselinoyarsk wilderness.  
  
And the truth was, he did, after a fashion. Getting more scientists out of Volgin was easy. Getting the right kind of scientists proved somewhat more of a challenge. He needed weapons engineers and physicists. Mathematicians would be nice, not to put too fine a point on it. Another ballistics specialist would certainly be on his wish list to Father Frost this year.  
  
Cultural anthropologists, geneticists, invertebrate biologists- these were not especially helpful. However, since he found them far more interesting to have around, he always found something for them to do. Chemists made excellent tea, as it turned out. Microbiologists tended to polish boots and belts with admirable attention.  
  
Raikov strolled companionably before them, as if searching for the ideal words, a hint of a smile lighting his face, when ostensibly he found them. “Life as a compelled contributor may not be balmy and seasonable at all times, but I assure you, life as bear chum is even less pleasant. And I’ve heard there are even worse things in these woods. Some very tall tales, I’ll admit.” He laughed, a good-natured sound. “Then again, who wants to be the litmus test?”  
  
Several men looked uneasy, several more looked as if they wished he had not abused the litmus analogy with quite so much impunity. The rest displayed various shades of resignation, watching him furtively from beneath bowed heads.  
  
Raikov felt annoyed for a moment. It wasn’t so difficult to do what you were told. It wasn’t as if any of them had a choice. And at least here they were well-fed and looked after, not out in the bread lines.  
  
He sighed, gesturing wide. “I might add that all of these fine men are under orders to prevent your flight, in the event that you should have, oh, how shall I say?…a logical lapse. You’ll know them by their fashionable black masks and large firearms. If you attempt to escape from Graniny-Gorki, you will be intercepted and confined.”  
  
The soldiers shifted and eyed the flock of brilliant men with barely concealed indifference. A few patted their AK-47s fondly.

Ocelot made a soft snorting noise and shook his head. Catching the reaction out of the corner of his eye, Raikov smiled. “The Colonel’s original diktat called for any errant researcher to be shot on sight. However, I have a certain amount of latitude, and I use it where and when I see fit. It does me no good to have a bunch of dead scientists bleeding all over the lawn. Even less so, now that it’s winter. At least in the summer it would feed the grass.”  
  
A flinch from a furrow-browed fellow in the middle. Probably a botanist.  
  
Useless, useless botanist.  
  
Raikov paused, putting a black-gloved finger to his lips. His hair was unusually lustrous in the cold air, falling into his eyes, slipping over itself, cool and dry. He tossed his head absently, to thwart the invading strands. “Therefore, any wayward geniuses are to be subdued non-lethally, so long as they haven’t escaped from the Laboratory grounds. If by some chance you make it to the woods, well…” He smiled affably. “It’s out of my hands.”  
  
Beside him, Ocelot pulled the trigger of his gun, the click of the chamber loud but empty. There was a collective flinch at the sound.  
  
Raikov turned to him. “Major Ocelot could probably tell you a little more about what unsavory surprises bedeck the wilderness tracts that GRU patrols."  
  
“I could,” agreed Ocelot, idly clicking back the hammer on his pistol. “But that would spoil the fun.”  
  
Raikov shrugged. “The fact is that I answer to Colonel Volgin, as does Ocelot. And we both have better things to do than herding cats. I don’t care how you handle the lab, or the grounds. All I ask of you? Behave. Keep Volgin off our backs, and we will keep you from being shot in yours.”  
  
Ocelot smirked and punctuated Raikov’s words with a generous display of digital pistols, angled sharply at the scientists.  
  
“I think that’s infinitely reasonable, don’t you, Major?” Raikov remarked, turning to him once more.  
  
“Infinitely. Of course, I _like_ to shoot people, and I’m not infected with Major Raikov’s little humanitarian virus. So do yourself a favor and listen to him. He’s what they call _the lesser evil_.”  
  
“Thank you comrade. That means a lot, coming from you.” Raikov raised his voice once more, to his official volume, a clarion baritenor with an air of finality. “If that’s amenable to everyone,” he said dryly, “then let’s get back to work.”  
  
“Dismissed,” barked Ocelot. “ _Yeb vas._ ”  
  
Like hothouse flowers, the scientists wasted little time, hustling for the heated security of their laboratories and libraries. By the look of it, they were meek to a man, but Raikov knew better than to trust in meekness. He meant to lose as few as possible.  
  
The GRU soldiers broke salute, and departed in small sets, pulling their balaclavas back into place and setting their guns on their shoulders. The Ocelot squad, by contrast, was more leisurely. They loitered by the gate, waiting for their commander, no doubt.  
  
They waited, because Ocelot was lingering as well.  
  
Raikov shot him a mild, questioning glance as he settled his ushanka. “Do we have congress to discuss, comrade major?”  
  
Ocelot’s lip twisted, but if he saw a double-entendre in the words, he declined to remark upon it. “Nothing pressing,” he answered, noncommittally, “but while I’ve been otherwise occupied, the Ocelot squad has been taking inventory of the surrounding area, various outbuildings and amenities. We’re about to tour the outer perimeter. I thought you might be interested.”  
  
"You want me to accompany you on patrol?”  
  
“It’s hardly patrol,” sneered Ocelot. “More of a scenic walk.”  
  
“A scenic walk with you and the Ocelot Troop.”  
  
“Essentially.”  
  
Ivan glanced at the snow-swathed woods beyond the gate, beyond the tidy accumulation of Ocelots that milled and smoked in companionably sulky silence. “Why not,” he said, slowly. “Da vai.”  
  
Ocelot gave a jerk of his head, beckoning him along. Raikov nodded, and fell into step beside him, hands pushed comfortably into the deep grey pockets of his encompassing greatcoat.  
  
The Ocelots fanned outward in semi-file, moving with light and inimitable stealth, and even though they were only walking, they suggestion somehow remained in his mind that they crept, keeping an ever-vigilant eye on their surroundings.  
  
“Not a bad unit,” he said, to Ocelot, who smirked.  
  
“Yours wasn’t bad either, Raikov.”  
  
“Sometimes I forget what a kid you are,” said Raikov, gazing up at the snow-limned branches.  
  
Ocelot scowled. “Sometimes I forget what trouble you are. So I guess that makes us even.”  
  
“We’re not even, Adamska. As I recall.”  
  
“You degenerate. Still shoveling your evil?”  
  
Raikov smiled faintly. “ _Lesser evil,_  was it, comrade? You don’t really believe that, do you?”  
  
“Not even on Sunday.”


End file.
